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Lapping oilstones and chisel backs flat

  • 16-08-2006 2:02pm
    #1
    MT
    Closed Accounts Posts: 583 ✭✭✭


    Hi, I recently decided to do a bit of woodwork and have bought and borrowed some chisels, hand planes and oilstones to sharpen them on. However, I haven't got very far as flattening the oilstones - one's silicon carbide, the other aluminium oxide - seems to be taking forever. The progress with the backs of the chisels and plane irons is marginally less slower.

    I got my hands on a flat granite slab (checked it with a straight edge) then taped 40 grade sandpaper onto it and have proceeded to rub all the items needing flattening on it. The progress is painfully slow. What am I doing wrong? Should I change the sandpaper more frequently - it only seems to cut well for a very short period at first? Am I completely on the wrong track - is there an entirely different and faster method of lapping that you guys use?


Comments

  • #2
    Fingalian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 378 ✭✭Fingalian


    I used use oilstones , then I switched to Japanese waterstones but nowadays I use wet/dry paper stuck to an A4 sized sheet of glass with 3M Spray Mount. Very fast and minimal mess. Check it out.


    http://www.shavings.net/SCARY.HTM


  • #3
    JoeB-
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 689 ✭✭✭JoeB-


    he he he

    That guy on the link has a way with words... I like the sentence

    'I ended up getting a shaving that was so darn thin I could read newsprint through it easily. Four ten-thousandths of an inch!'

    'For a while there, I actually thought I had taken off another shaving that was even thinner, one so thin in fact that it was invisible and of no measurable mass. I'm pretty sure I did, actually, but I'm having a hard time trying to think of a way to check this out, or even to find the spot on the ceiling that it floated up to.'


    It sounds like a great technique for sharpening...
    Cheers
    Joe


  • #4
    MT
    Closed Accounts Posts: 583 ✭✭✭MT


    Yeah, I've read about the Scary sharp method but I think I'd just like to go with the oilstones for the time being anyway. I just like the idea of one or two simple stones as opposed to sticking on lots of little bits of sandpaper on glass. The former seems more authentic - allows an amateur like me to think I'm doing it like a real craftsman :rolleyes: - and yeah, I'm just lazy.

    I've just changed my 40 grade sheet of sandpaper again and made much more progress - the stone is now very nearly flat. Oh, and I also tried some lose grit - ok, sand actually (how much of a novice does that make me sound) - on top of the sandpaper and that helped alot too.


  • #5
    MT
    Closed Accounts Posts: 583 ✭✭✭MT


    I think I've discovered why the lapping was taking so long. It seems to have been due to the sandpaper I was using - 3M 40 grade. I realised this just by chance after picking up some old scraps of Naylor and Atlas 40 grade paper and trying them instead. They cut way quicker - I was able to remove more steel in two minutes than in all the days I've been labouring with the 3M stuff.

    It's strange but the naylor and atlas sheets seem to have a totally different type of grit - it's more glass like and much denser. The 3M grit looks more like little stones which are more widely spaced. I'm wondering if the latter is silicon carbide while the other two being aluminium oxide abrasive. Apparently al. oxide is better in the coarse grits for lapping steel!?


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