re: Wood Chisels - Buying, Restoring, Sharpening and Using

I have two methods for sharpening depending on how bad the edge is.

When a chisel has gotten a ding and I need to remove a bunch of metal, I’ll take it over to the hand-cranked grinder Tony gave me. I’ve got the tool rest on that set at what seems to be a good angle for most of my lathe tools. I may move my little angle finder over from the table saw, since I still haven’t fixed that so I can actually zero the blade.

When tools need a quicker touch-up, I use a sharp skate with the older set of wheels rather than the skate. This does sideways sharpening as Tom recommends, and I agree that it’s an easier way for me to work and maintain the angle, though I sometimes won’t get a narrow chisel in exactly straight and will start making a skew. I generally catch that pretty quickly by looking at the scratches on the face. I use Arkansas oil stones for this sharpening now, since that’s what I grew up with and I can get good results. I do have a coarse friable stone which I’ll use when I’m changing a bevel angle or removing a ding and don’t want to use the grinder. That’s the fastest stone/hone I have other than the grinder.