Woodpecker Honing plates

[Dominic]

Hey, I have been getting frustrated flattening and polishing the backs of plane irons and chisels on my finer water stones because they seemed to wear too quickly and would end up dished unless I flattened them several times during the process and that is just too tedious. I have been using a small 600 grit diamond stone for initial flattening and for grinding the main bevel. But I'm not certain it is flat either. So I just got a set of the new Woodpecker honing plates. They are super flat aluminium plates onto which you stick Mylar honing sheets. 3 grits at 15u (about 1000) 5u and 0.3u which is like an 8000 or finer. The Gore/Gilet book suggests diamond stones for their flatness. So I ordered a Duo-Sharp 320/600 plate for fast cutting and initial shaping but it has not arrived yet. These are supposed to be super flat also and its 10" x 4" so can be used to flatten stones as well as irons and chisels.
Anyway, the honing plates work great and once I had a nice primary bevel I used the plates to do the micro-bevel and polish the backs. Spray a bit of soapy water on them and they quickly brought the edges and back to a mirror shine and as sharp as I have got them on my good water stones. They are 14" long so there is plenty to work with. The Mylar is supposed to last a long time and cuts pretty well but new sheets are only about $3 each. They come in a set of 3 for about $100. Cheaper than buying 3 decent water stones and they will never dish.
So I am sold.
Dom

main_honing_plate_system.jpg (58.92 KiB) Viewed 5994 times

[charangohabsburg]

That looks like a neat solution!

Just a question that's a bit off track: what's the point of adding soap to the water? I heard of this before (for sharpening stones).

[Dominic]

Marcus, the instructions said to so I did. I suspect it is the surfactant properties of the soap that helps break the water cohesion around metal particles and this helps float them away so they don’t bind up the grit. Its only a drop in a 500ml spray bottle so the water is not foamy. Seems to work and I have no reason to doubt the instructions so there you go.
Cheers
Dom

[Alastair]

Hi Dom,

I've been down some of these routes with straight woodworking.

The Mylar sheets seem to be a hi-tech revision of what was doing the rounds some years ago as "scary sharp". Wet and dry of increasing fineness, on a plate glass substrate.

I eventually dropped this, because of an abiding feeling that sharpness seemed to fall off, as you worked down to the finer grits. Subsequently seen suggestions that due to "give" in the fibres of the w&d paper, you were working on a flexible surface, and hence got rounding of the bevel/edge. As the definition of sharp is the meeting of 2 planes, it seemed to make sense to me. Not sure if the Mylar would suffer the same issue?

I have since gone to a combination of oilstone, (for initial bevel) and waterstone (for secondary bevel), which works well for me. I have not had the patience to go for multiple finer w/s's, as the return of increased sharpness/ time to resharpen does not seem to equate with the increased time of sharpening.

I also am not too anal about flattening stones. I prefer my planes to have some relief at the corners. I have been using my current stones for a couple of years, and the way I use them, thay have not shown evidence of enough dishing to make enough difference for me to flatten them!!

That said, I have just scored a big piece of plate glass, so maybe it is time to get some grinding paste, and have at it?

regards

[Dominic]

Hey Alastair, I have experienced the bunching of wet and dry so never wanted to put my irons out of square so never used it. The Mylar film is stiff and flat and feels like a stone surface to the touch. The very fine film feels like plastic but it cuts and polishes well when following the othe grits.
You don't need the plates and could just get the film but these plates are very very flat, much flatter than float glass or granite. I've also seen diamond Mylar film.
Not sure how you get by without flat stones. Hard to get a good edge.
Dom