Oneway Wolverine honing jig

[Monty]

I posted this on Woodnet also. Wolverine Flat Tool Sharpening & Honing Jig. This is a new product for use with the Wolverine jig - I just saw one this weekend.

$79.95

Any thoughts? Does this look any good? Anybody have one of these yet?

 

[DaveO]

It looks pretty good to me, for use on the grinder, especially if you already have the Wolverine system. But it looks awkward on the oilstones, and doesn't appear to have any roller system, so you would be grinding your jig also, creating extra wear on the stones. Just my .02, from what I could see in the picture. Dave

 

[Monty]

Actually it does have rollers - if you look at that top picture, you can see the rollers on the other end of the jig (resting on the table). It's the type of honing jig that doesn't roll on the stone, but rather on a flat surface behind the stones. In the last picture, the operator's hand is obscuring the view of the rollers.

 

[DaveO]

D'oh, now I see that. Well, in that case it does sound like a good deal. I've recently read in one of my WW"ing mags a article on sharpening guides. They mentioned that the guides that rolled on on the stone could limit the size stone you use. But I would think that the manufactors would make it to accomodate the common width stones. Dave

 

[Jonz]

I have it. It's ok for grinding I guess but not honing. It's too large to get the bevel and the rollers on the average stone at the same time (approx 9" apart), which means the rollers have to reference off something else like the table.

Unless all your stones are the same thickness, referencing off anything other than the stone changes the bevel angle when you change stones.

There is also not a really good way to square the blade in the jig, no good reference to use. It's put together solidly but not exact and you have to grind, then check for square, which is hard to do while in the jig.

I wouldn't buy it again. Before you spend on it let me know and I will send you mine to try.

 

[Monty]

Jonz - your reply is helpful. I knew about the problems with this sort of jig referencing off the table instead of the face of the stone. This problem can be addressed, but not easily. I think you'd have to put each stone in its own recessed well, shimmed up to be level with the surface of the platform. As each stone wears, you'd have to keep adding shims to keep it level.

When I saw this thing in the store, my biggest concern was how to square the blade in the jig. If you press the blade up tight against the right or left side before tightening the screws, does that square it up?

 

[Jonz]

Nope, not really.

See the part where you clamp the blade? It's made of 2 pieces of steel. One piece is has 2 right angles bent so that it forms a "U", and the other is just a straight piece welded into it with the set screws. If you try to square to either side, you're not pushing into a real 90 degree corner, but into a rounded bend in like 1/4" steel, which is really not very precise at all.

You also can't square off the steel as the blade exits the jig. The welded in piece is not welded in there straight, you can look at it and see that, and you can't lay your square on the "U" piece because the bends flare the edges of the steel every which way.

Even if you COULD easily square the blade in the thing, the whole top section is not necessarily parallel with the other end, the part with the hole that slides over the male end of the jig. Throw in any issues with the cam lever deal in relation to the grinding wheel etc etc.

There are just too many variables with the thing to me. It's almost like you are better just to clamp it in there any which way and leave it a little loose, then square the best you can to the grinder wheel.

 

[Monty]

Hmmm... I see what you mean -- lots of variables indeed.

• You have to make sure your Wolverine base is straight in line with your wheel.
• Of course, the face of your wheel needs to be square and flat.
• You have to make sure the guide arm is perfectly perpendicular to the face of the wheel -- I assume that if the above are right, then this will be true.
• You have to make sure your blade is perfectly perpendicular to the guide arm of the actual jig. If the guide arm is then perpendicular to the face of the stone, you should grind a square edge on your blade.

Of course, the blade doesn't have to be PERFECTLY perpendicular - you just want it to be very close to 90* to minimize how much lateral adjustment you have to do in your plane. What's more important is that, when you return the blade to the holder, you can set it up to be exactly the same angle every time -- this minimizes the amount of waste you'll have to grind away.

So... how about this idea? Use a syringe to inject a small bead of epoxy along the left edge of the blade holding jig. Next use a temporary straightedge (wood, metal, whatever) that is thick enough to almost take up the whole vertical space in the holder - but not so wide that you can't move it side-to-side. Wrap the left edge of this with a piece of paper (so the epoxy won't stick). Slide it in the holder and fix it so the straightedge is as perpendicular as possible to the guide arm, and press it against the epoxy until it starts to sqeeze out. Now clamp it down and let the expoxy cure, then remove the straightedge and trim the paper and epoxy squeeze-out. Now you should have a proper reference edge on the left side of your jig, so your blade will always be at the same (hopefully very close to 90*) angle in the jig.

What do you think?

 

[Jonz]

Yeah I think that would do it. But between that and having to shim the stones to hone, that's a whole lot of extra work. I have the LV MII honing guide too, and it's way too cool not to use.

 

[mkepke]

Well, I think I see another major flaw. The blade holder appears to use three socket-headed bolts directly onto the tool. Makes it unable to hold narrower blades like most chisels.

I don't know about y'all, but I have no trouble free-hand honing wide blades because they have so much bearing surface it's easy to feel the right angle. It's the narrow blades that I like to use a jig.

-Mark

 

[Big Mike]

Don't have it, never seen it or used it. However I think it would be fairly easy to use it for honing if you use silicon carbide wet/dry paper on plate glass. I use this method to hone my chisels and irons currently and get them as sharp as I like. Cheap too, once you get a scrap of plate glass and supply of paper. I went to the glass store and they gave me a scrap of plate glass large enough for two sheets of paper for free. Now that is a good price to me....