Workers Of Wood

Woodpecker has come out with a sharpening guide that may be a bit superior to the Veritas one, simply because it uses a wheel on either side which can be mounted inboard or outboard. It's also much pricier than the Veritas one.

https://www.woodpeck.com/sharpening-sys ... ing+System

Charles, in my view this is a much better design, apart from the reason you give.

I bought the Veritas Mk I years ago when visiting Toronto, and found it barely usable. I remember Stick waxing lyrical about the Mark II, but have read reports of the same problems:
a. It is difficult to get and keep the tool at right angles to the front of the jig, leading to an inadvertent (and undesired) skew grind.
b. It is often difficult to keep a narrow chisel flat, as the bevelled side is the primary registration point, and can rock during sharpening.

A number of other jigs (eg Stanley and its knock-offs) have similar problems.
The Woodpecker jig solves these issues by
a. gripping the edge of the chisel on either side at its broadest point; even very finely bevelled chisels have a narrow “land” at the sides to prevent cutting oneself. And Mortice chisels which a slightly tapered from the back to the bevelled side generally also do not have sharp, non-grippable edges. (I have some Narex ones which are tapered, but would not buy them again, because of a propensity to rotate slightly in the mortice; I noted too late that Beckenvoort and Sellers advise in favour of parallel sides).

b. The flat side of the blade is registered againt the jig, not the bevelled side. So unless there is some corkscrewing of the blade, there will be no skewing of the bevel.

The setup block has settings for a secondary bevel for each angle. The Veritas jig has a cam on the roller, which works quite well, provided incipient senility does not make one turn the cam the wrong way. I note Paul Sellers eschews secondary bevels.

Perhaps the one advantage the Veritas jig has, is the relative ease of cambering a plane blade - there is even a camber roller replacement.

I fully own up to my hamfistedness as the primary cause of non-performance of the Veritas Mk I, but note that even I could not goof up with the Woodpecker design. Pity about the price.

Admittedly most of you would have shipping costs, but this is a very highly regarded source;
http://richardkell.co.uk/

Bob, that reminds me of the other advantage which the Veritas Mk Ii has, and which I have never needed thus far: there is an attachment to handle skews precisely. Your source seems to have some capacity in that direction, although short of downloading the instructions I cannot figure out how it would work.

this is it;

Thanks Bob. The only skew chisels I have are for my lathe, so all told I would stick to the Woodpecker design. Pretty foolproof for someone who does not sharpen enough to develop muscle memory.

because of shipping problems since Britain left the EU I got a local engineer to make me a guide, based on the kell but nowhere near as fancy. I only use it for hand chisels, which I only use if I have to. It does give exact repeatability, with the 3M micro finish papers, but I hate all forms of sharpening with a vengance, its the most boring way of watching your life pass you by that I know.

I have one of the cheap one wheeled designs and it can rock back and forth as described. I thought the Veritas one was wide enough to prevent that. The real problem I've found is trying to restore old plane irons that have been badly sharpened. Most jigs will manage with one that only needs a touch up. At least for a while they will.

I don't bother using a jig with chisels anymore. I just go by eye. The edges really don't need to be square because I almost never use them that way, they skew cut much better than square cut and the skewed position is more ergonomic for the wrist anyway. I'm pretty good at estimating the 25 degree angle. I bought a brass gauge and all of them were within a few degrees. I don't believe in micro bevels either. The idea is to shortcut the honing process by only touching up the tip but sooner or later you have to correct the main bevel so it's a save now, pay later proposition.

Lathe chisels I do by eye now too. I just take a diamond hone, usually my 600 grit one and hold the chisel at eye level in one hand and stroke it with the hone. I'm getting the chisels much sharper that way and the edges last longer.

I made a honing jig that solves all the problems you mentioned. You can make it for about $10 or so. It uses 608 skateboard bearings ($.80 each in packs of 10) plus a 10mm all thread rod. A 5/16' rod will work but there is a tiny bit of slop. I'll take some pictures when I go out to the shop later. It has one main drawback but it is manageable.

I see Veritas came out with a side-clamping guide a couple of years ago. Looks like a bit of an improvement over the Stanley type regarding clamping, although I am not fully convinced -I see they provide a hex wrench to tighten the clamp for tools with non-standard bevel geometry.
But they have retrogressed, in my view, by adopting a narrower roller -back to the rocking.

Woodpeckers has this odd sales model where they produce stuff for a month only, then “retire” the model and trot it out again at unpredictable intervals. I see they have moved the jig in question up to permanent availability. I suppose it makes sense to somebody, but I don’t get it.

Here’s my home made one. It has a wide stance of about 3.5”/90mm between the bearings but it can be anything you want. The clamp bar will clamp down on irons or chisels. The grooves are for lining them up at 90 degrees. Every operation was done on a table saw, the line up grooves, the groove for the all thread rod, and the bevel at the front so that it can tilt down.

As I said, it uses two 608 skateboard bearings which are 8mm ID and 22mm OD. A 5/16” rod would work. There is a very tiny amount of play but you are always pushing down so that shouldn’t be a problem. You need washers between the hubs and the jig so that they spin freely.

The downside of the jig is that it has very little clearance. It works well with the diamond hones pictured. It would work well using papers. To use a water stone you’d need to build a platform around the stone to near level.