I hate, hate, HATE doing it, but it must be done. New 1-1/2" chisel, had to take it to the grinder out of the box because it's not square.

Flattening the back isn't so bad, but when I have to basically put a whole new primary bevel on it I balk because it's a lot of manual labor that isn't much fun to do. The Veritas jig and a pair of diamond plates certainly make it a hell of a lot easier to do, but it's still a royal pain.

Plane irons are a walk in the park, even if I have to take it to the grinder, or if it's a Japanese style wooden plane. Hell, even sharpening a spokeshave is easier than dealing with a chisel.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot of work to do before I can make this thing usable.

quote:

Originally posted by vulrath:
I hate, hate, HATE doing it, but it must be done. New 1-1/2" chisel, had to take it to the grinder out of the box because it's not square.

Flattening the back isn't so bad, but when I have to basically put a whole new primary bevel on it I balk because it's a lot of manual labor that isn't much fun to do. The Veritas jig and a pair of diamond plates certainly make it a hell of a lot easier to do, but it's still a royal pain.

Plane irons are a walk in the park, even if I have to take it to the grinder, or if it's a Japanese style wooden plane. Hell, even sharpening a spokeshave is easier than dealing with a chisel.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot of work to do before I can make this thing usable.

For me, just a good wheel on the grinder, and a bucket of water on the floor below, and I'll get it there pretty quick (chisel, or any blade). I don't do much beyond that, except a rough hone. After all, it's just for chopping wood, not making paper thin shavy things, or shaving your arm hair. A chisel sharpened like that can do a lot of work.
 

I was fighting with it quite a bit (even managed to gouge a pretty good groove into my Shapton 120 grit stone). Took a few hours as a break and rethought the issue, and I ended up hitting it with the grinder again, this time in a better spot. Still not a fun job, but much, much more manageable.

Now all I have left to do is basically finish cleaning up the idiot marks on the bevel. Some will stay through another few sharpenings because I'm lazy and it's not absolutely necessary to remove them all, but most are already gone after 20 minutes on the coarse plate. After this I'll run it on the 1000 grit King stone and finish on the 6000 grit stone like I would any other blade.

I'm a little obsessive (borderline compulsive) about my blade care, I admit, but since this particular chisel's primary job is going to be paring a bunch of waste wood off of mitered tenons in oak, I want it as sharp as I can possibly get it.