With 25 years of experience in the woodworking industry under his belt, our Product Manager Rod Bonham can certainly answer a wide variety of questions on the topic. One that he gets often — and which he has a strong answer for — is “What’s the best sharpening setup to use?”
Bonham’s initial response is always, “That’s a very personal answer,” but to be fair, it’s true. It all depends on how sharp you think your tools should be, and how much time, money, and effort you want to put into your sharpening kit.
Because at its core, tools that are sharp produce better results, and they’ll give you results you’ll be happy with. Needless to say, being able to achieve good, consistent results is important — which means that good sharpening equipment is as well.
That being said, what do you need to get started?
Bonham recommends Japanese water stones because they can produce some of the sharpest edges around. These stones don’t require any setup except to dunk them in water 15 to 30 minutes before using them. There is a small learning curve in getting a perfect final result, but in teaching yourself to use Japanese water stones, you’re building hand skills that will later transfer to other woodworking techniques.
Essential Stones and Grits
A basic kit of #800, #1200, and #4000 stones will produce ultra-sharp tools that will cut wood fibers efficiently. You can often find combination stones of #800/#1200 or similar, which is a great way to get the same sharp results and save a little money at the same time. Bonham prefers to leave the #4000 or higher grit stones as singles and use them to finish off his chisel or plane blade.
Honing Guide
You’ll also need a quality honing guide. There are a myriad of choices out there ranging from $15 to $80 in price. Bonham’s favorite is the Veritas MKII guide — it gets rave reviews and it has a system of add-ons you can get later as your skills progress. You’ll also want a storage container of some sort to organize your sharpening gear. This can also provide a ready container to soak your stones before use.
There are more theories and methods to sharpening than we have space for this post, but this simple setup will get you on the right track to sharp tools without too much fuss or expense. All the gear described above is available at leading woodworking supply stores, and they should have subject matter experts on hand to help guide your decisions.
For more information on each type of stone and their uses, click this link.
Good luck and happy sharpening!
