Understand Honing Guides

Richard Kell’s No. 1 Honing Guide

Good and straight. The Kell jig is great for short tools that need straight edges, such as plow plane irons or this dovetail chisel. It’s a versatile jib because you can also clamp things below the jig’s guide bars, as shown.

Recently I’ve become enamored with this side-clamping jig because it handles some difficult tools with great aplomb. Plus, it’s a beautifully made tool and rolls smoothly in use on its Ertalite TX low-friction wheels.

Richard Kell makes two versions of this guide. The No. 1, which handles tools up to 1-1/4″ wide, and the No. 2, which handles tools up to 2-5/8″. The large guide isn’t ideal for shops that sharpen on 3″-wide sharpening stones. That’s because when you clamp a wide plane iron into the large guide, the wheels are pushed out so far that it’s difficult (or impossible) to keep the jig and iron on your stone. You could build a sort of platform around your stone (or you could sharpen with sandpaper stuck to glass), but building a platform is more work than is reasonable in my opinion.

The smaller Kell guide, however, is ideal for narrow and unusual tools, and it is the only tool that easily holds the Ray Iles mortising chisel. The secret to the jig is, I think, the plastic washers that do the actual clamping. These clear plastic washers are tough but grippy, so they can hold a tool that has a slight irregular shape, such as a handmade Japanese chisel.

The other brilliant part of the Kell jig is that you can clamp your work either above or below its stainless steel guide bars. That makes gripping unusual shoulder-plane irons and dovetail chisels an easy proposition.

So where are the warts? The small Kell won’t clamp fishtail-shaped chisels or sharpen skew chisels. The small Kell guide also won’t hold a standard spokeshave, smoothing-plane or block plane blade.

Also, it will not allow you to create a blade with a curved cutting edge. The jig forces your edges to be straight, like it or not. The upside to this is that if your only hand tools are chisels (or you have mortising chisels that give you sharpening fits), the Kell is an excellent choice.

One final note: I’m also quite fond of the way you secure tools in the Kell. Unlike the other side-clamping honing guide, you don’t need a screwdriver to torque the Kell down. Here, finger pressure is enough.

Veritas Mk. II Honing Guide

Pick an angle, any angle. The Veritas Mk. II honing guide sets your sharpening angle with an included blade-registration jig. The clamping bars allow you to grip a variety of shapes.The second honing guide I bought was actually Veritas’s ancestor to this jig. I bought that older jig – which also clamped tools from above and below – to handle my odd-shaped tools. That jig served me well, but tools would shift around more than I liked.This improved version of that older guide is more complex, but the changes added accuracy, versatility and clamping power.The Veritas is the only jig that allows you to set the sharpening angle with an included blade-registration jig.You select the angle you want to sharpen at, then set that angle on the included blade-registration jig. Clip the jig to the front of your guide then insert your tool between the jig’s two clamping bars (up to 2-7/8" wide). The blade-registration guide sets the sharpening angle and holds the tool square while you clamp it in place using two thumbscrews. Then you remove the blade-registration jig and start sharpening.It’s remarkable what tools the Veritas will hold. With the exception of the Ray Iles mortising chisel, the Veritas grabbed every tool securely without complaint.And it’s amazing the wide range of sharpening angles the jig can be used to achieve. Because it is so adjustable, you can use it to sharpen weird angles (such as 20° back bevels on handplane irons) that advanced sharpeners sometimes require.What are the downsides to the jig? They are minor. The base model from the factory will sharpen your tools straight across only. Making a curved edge with this jig is nigh on impossible without modifying the jig – thanks to the 2 1/8"-long straight roller. Veritas makes a Camber Roller Accessory ($19.50) that replaces your straight roller with one that has a slight cigar shape. That allows you to camber your cutting edges with finger pressure – just like the side-clamp honing guide.Veritas also makes a Skew-registration Jig ($26.50) that allows you to set all sorts of oddly skewed tools in the honing guide.Like all honing guides that clamp from above and below, there is always the slight chance that your tool will shift in the guide, especially if the tool is narrow, if you are working aggressively or if you are fixing an out-of-square cutting edge. And this is something to be careful of with the Veritas.One way to help prevent this is to take care when securing your tools. The two thumbscrews that control the jig’s clamping bar should be advanced so each one is applying the same amount of pressure. If one of the thumbscrews is doing most of the work, the tool is more likely to shift.The other thing to watch for on this jig is the position of its roller. The jig allows you to tweak the roller down a couple degrees so you can create a secondary bevel on your tools. You need to remember to return this roller to its highest position when you are done sharpening, or you will introduce some minor errors to your tools that can add some sharpening time later on to fix. It’s a minor point, but it is something to which to pay attention.The SharpSkateRoll with it. The SharpSkate hones your tools side-to-side, which allows you to work all the corners of your stones, even to work off the stone if you like.

The newest honing guide is the SharpSkate, which was developed by sharpening guru Harrelson Stanley of JapaneseTools.com. Like the Veritas, the SharpSkate clamps blades from above and below. But other than that, the SharpSkate is different than all the other honing guides in this article.
Every other honing guide that I’ve used pushes the tool’s cutting edge forward and back on the stone, like a snowplow. The SharpSkate works the edge side to side, more like a rollerblade. The jig rolls on nine 3/8″-diameter steel wheels.

The SharpSkate’s blade-clamping mechanism is also unusual. It’s a serrated V-shaped clamping pad. The serrations grab your tools (up to 2-7/16″ wide) and squares them in the jig. The V-shape of the pad allows you to flex the pad slightly to generate serious clamping pressure.

This pad also can be rotated to grip skew tools of any angle and has three detents (left and right) for common skew angles.

The SharpSkate is the only honing guide that could grip all the tools in the test well enough to hone them reliably and repeatedly, though its hold on the fishtail chisel and mortising chisel weren’t ideal.

The advantage of sharpening side-to-side (as opposed to forward-and-back) is that you can easily sharpen on all points of your stone to spread out the wear and reduce your stone-flattening chores. It takes a little practice, but you’ll be an expert in less than an hour.

There are some quirks to the jig you should be aware of. I recommend you use a hex-head wrench to secure and release your blades. Hand pressure is not always enough to prevent the tool from shifting slightly.

Also, you need to watch where you put your finger pressure with the SharpSkate. One of the advantages of this jig is that you can use finger pressure to create a cambered cutting edge. But that finger pressure can work against you when you don’t want to create a cambered or skewed shape to your cutting edge.

Speaking of cambers, one of the great advantages to the jig is you can hold small blades at a variety of angles. The downside comes when sharpening at really steep angles for smoothing planes in bevel-up tools. As you get into the really high angles (more than 40°), it’s difficult to get your fingers where they need to be to create the camber with pressure.

Also, just as with the Veritas, you need to take care that the tool doesn’t shift slightly out of square when working. Though the serrations on its clamping pad work well, you can still move the tool a bit when working aggressively or correcting an edge.

One final note: Be sure to keep the nine wheels clean. There’s some potential for sharpening grit to accumulate near the wheels. A quick spray of water keeps everything tidy.

Conclusions
The jig or jigs you choose should match your set of tools today and what you might buy tomorrow. If you’re a chisel-and-block-plane woodworker (and always will be), the side-clamping honing guide might be all you need.

The Kell is ideal for people with small-scale tools with straight edges, or it is an excellent second guide.

The Veritas is an excellent guide for beginning and advanced sharpeners because it allows you to hold a wide variety of tools and accurately set them at the right angle every time you pick up the jig.

The SharpSkate is also a good guide for people with tools of varied shapes. It might be the best guide for woodworkers who want to graduate to hand sharpening some day. The inventor rightly points out that his guide is a good set of training wheels for some kinds of hand sharpening.

For my work, I like having two guides. One that clamps tools on the sides so I can get a straight edge when I need it. And a second guide that clamps above and below so I can sharpen odd-shaped tools that I own now (and those I might own in the future). Exactly which guide or guides you purchase is up to your tools and your pocketbook. PW

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