Reddit reviews WoodRiver Honing Guide with Hardened Steel Roller Glides
We found 5 Reddit comments about WoodRiver Honing Guide with Hardened Steel Roller Glides. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Hone edge tools between grindings with this unique self-centering guideChisels and plane irons from 1/16" to 2-5/8" wide can be held securelyTwo sets of stepped jawsHardened steel roller glides -WoodRiver is proudly made by Woodcraft, America’s leading supplier of saws, planes, power tools, hand tools, wood stain and paint, routers, sanding, wood, kits, dust collection and more. Our award winning family of brands includes WoodRiver, Highpoint, Woodcraft and Woodcraft Magazine as well as the greatest selection of woodworking books, videos, and plans.
If you want a cheap-but-good hand plane, you can buy an old Stanley or Record on ebay for pennies (I've picked up a 4, 5, and 5 1/2 for less than the equivalent of $20 each) and restore them by hand - it only takes an hour or two. For sharpening, as others have said, you can pick up a cheap honing guide like this one: https://www.amazon.com/WoodRiver-Honing-Guide/dp/B0035Y439C/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1505740493&sr=8-7&keywords=honing+guide
If you want to build a workbench, I'd suggest starting with a version of Rob Cosman's $100 bench: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyrGlVWiTA
+router bit set:
https://www.amazon.com/MLCS-8377-15-Piece-Router-Carbide-Tipped/dp/B000FJRN8S
+honing jig:
https://www.amazon.com/WoodRiver-Honing-Guide/dp/B0035Y439C
Make the mallet.
Honing compound: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N20BY2T/ref=psdc_553346_t3_B00HT74364
Combo square:
http://www.harryepstein.com/index.php/12-4-pc-combination-square-metric-fractional-usa.html
Dust mask: https://www.amazon.com/3M-Facepiece-Respirator-6291-Particulate/dp/B000FTEDMM
I've tried freehand, but I prefer using a Veritas MkII with the "scary sharp" method.
The scary sharp is probably the cheapest and easiest to set up, you don't have to buy the kits, just go to Walmart and get the sandpaper in the automotive section. If you have a glass shop near you, get a piece of tempered glass close to 2' x 1' x 1/4" and you can fit all your grits from 100 up to whatever on it. You can also find flooring tiles at Home Depot or Lowes that are flat enough, but you may have to pull a few to find that "perfect" one. You'll want some adhesive to stick those strips of sandpaper down too. You might want to get a leather strop too, depending on what grit sandpaper you stop at. I only go to 2000, then strop with green chrome oxide compound. It's good enough to shave with.
Lastly, a good honing guide is essential for starting out, at least for me. I don't have to worry about getting the angle right, or worry whether or not I'll get repeatable results. The MkII is a thousand times better at getting it right than the cheap $9 honing guides (which are absolute junk, unless you know how to fix them).
Hope that helps.
Regardless of what method you choose, you want a honing guide unless you woodwork full time (in which case, you need to buy better sharpening gear!). Even the editors of Fine Woodworking on the Shop Talk Live podcast use honing guides because it's too hard to build muscle memory unless you do it full time. A $20 honing guide works well (especially if you spend a few minutes tweaking it, but, of course, Veritas makes a better one. You also want to build a jig, so the chisels and plane irons are always inserted the same amount (I glued blocks of wood to another block of wood to use as stops).
For sharpening with an $80 budget remaining, there are two options: "Scary Sharp" and inexpensive water stones.
For around $40 initial investment, the "Scary sharp" system uses 150, 400, and 1000 grit sandpaper (you can add/use whatever grits you want) and a piece of machined granite or thick glass (I use a glass shelf I bought at Home Depot). This works great, but it gets expensive over time since sandpaper doesn't last long.
For around $80, you can get two two-sided synthetic waterstones, with grits of 400, 1000, 4000 and 8000, and a flattening stone. Inexpensive waterstones will sharpen just fine; they just wear out quicker, which means they dish sooner so need to be flattened more often. It's more effort but cheaper.
My primary sharpening is the above waterstones, but I also have the glass and sandpaper for the times that I need to reset a bevel, flatten the back of an iron, or true a plane's sole. I'll start with 80 grit sandpaper and work up to around 400, then move to my 400 grit waterstone. I could do all the sharpening with the stones, but the sandpaper is faster for the more course operations and has value for eg the plane truing.
I use these sharpening plates
then a fine whet stone - 8000 grit
Then leather strop charged with chromium oyxcide
I use this honing guide for 99% of my planes and chisels. It works well for me.
Then I essentially use this technique with diamond plates ( but use the honing guide because my hands don't have 50 years of muscle memory built up )