For many years I followed the standard practice of adding a micro bevel during initial sharpening of my bench chisels. The concept was logical; creating a micro bevel means only having to sharpen a small fraction of the bevel during subsequent sharpening, a definite labor saver when using oil or water stones.
When I purchased my Tormek in 2009, I switched to the recommended Tormek practice of sharpening the entire bevel with no micro or secondary bevel. I still do this. In the back of my mind, I thought I might add a micro bevel if I ever sharpened chisels for other people who might have to resharpen with bench stones. I now think that if someone prefers to resharpen (without having a Tormek), the first resharpening can serve as adding the initial micro bevel. I would discuss this beforehand with the customer.
What about the "two step" approach of having an initial bevel with a secondary bevel ground to the desired bevel angle? For my own chisels, I would use my Tormek to create my desired single bevel. The Tormek does the heavy lifting. I would discuss this beforehand if I was sharpening for another woodworker.
Thoughts?
Ken
Ken,
I use micro bevels for sharpening certain tools, but not for all. The places I find it most useful are:
- Chisels and planes (as you noted),
- Knives, especially pocket knives,
- Tools with carbide inserts (for both wood and metal lathes), and
- Fly cutters, especially as the metal is so hard!
With certain lathe tools, especially the bowl gouge, I find that a relief grind is needed to prevent bruising the wood as I traverse the concave curve. This works like a micro bevel in that it is also faster to resharpen.
I documented my findings here, including outlining the angle delta I use for the micro- / secondary bevel. http://sharpeninghandbook.info/MicroBevels.html
Where I find it does not work well is for tools that need to use the full surface. One example of that is the wood lathe skew.
Kind regards,
Rich
Rich,
To quote CB's wise comment (in knife sharpening today), "There are many paths".
Ken