- Joined
- Nov 22, 2009
- Messages
- 11,601
First a bit of background.
I have been enjoying the inner peace brought by sharpening freehand lately. I have watched a couple videos and thought it would be nice to have one of those nifty little blocks I see some guys using that holds the stone at a 15 degree angle.
Sometimes I prefer to simply use the edge that is there and follow it free hand, but for regrinding an edge, I thought it would be nice to have something to show me the way to a nearly perfect 15 degree (per side) grind. This seemed to be handy for the plethora of abused knives my family has laying around that were never ground properly in the first place and now have many deep nicks in the blade that need to be ground out.
Additional background: I am pretty good at working with my hands, but lack the power tools necessary to cut a large block at a 15 degree angle. Also with Christmas just behind me (and a property taxes recently paid) I am looking for an economical way out.
Sound like something you are interested in? Read on.
Start out with a quick trip to the hardware store. Purchased a length of 1x4, two steel plates, and a little bag of wood screws.
Want particulars on what I used? Hopefully you can make out the receipt:
Got out the one power tool I do have and cut the board into two lengths (actually 3, but I only used two sections a bit over a foot long each). It does not matter much if you cut it straight...just eyeball it. As long as it looks good from 5 feet away it'll be fine...trust me!
Grab your steel plates and bend them in half. put about a 90 degree bend in them. This is sort of important that you bend them straight otherwise your block will not be even. For this I recommend using a straight edge of a bench top to give you a straight edge to start the bend. Also bend along a row of holes to keep things straight.
Overlap the edges of the boards as shown and screw on the plate. This is going to work like a hinge that you will eventually bend to 15 degrees. (yeah the last photo and the next are actually reversed...I failed to take a photo of the first plate I bent).
You did rememeber to use the right tool for the job when you open your bag of screws, right?
Take your second plate and similarly bend it in half. Now you are going to use an angle finder, protractor or whatever you have to determine where to fix this plate to lock in your 15 degree angle. Don't have anything? Well use your trig that you hopefully learned in high school. Tangent of 15 degrees is 0.26795. So if you measure out 10 inches from the apex of the angle, your rise shoudl be 2.6795 inches. If you have an iPhone or know someone that does, use a free application to get it good enough for your work.
Here is what my level app showed after I "adjusted" the surface with a few good shoves here and there on the metal plates (they have enough bend in them that you can shove around on things and change the angle a bit).
Looks good to me!
Hope you found this useful...there must be a billion ways to improve on this.
As you see in the second last photo I wrapped some tape around the board to hold things in place. Once I was totally pleased with how things were I ran a screw in front of and behind the plate to hold things in place permanently.
Surprisingly, I found that I could micro adjust the angle by tightening and loosening these screws slightly.
I have been enjoying the inner peace brought by sharpening freehand lately. I have watched a couple videos and thought it would be nice to have one of those nifty little blocks I see some guys using that holds the stone at a 15 degree angle.
Sometimes I prefer to simply use the edge that is there and follow it free hand, but for regrinding an edge, I thought it would be nice to have something to show me the way to a nearly perfect 15 degree (per side) grind. This seemed to be handy for the plethora of abused knives my family has laying around that were never ground properly in the first place and now have many deep nicks in the blade that need to be ground out.
Additional background: I am pretty good at working with my hands, but lack the power tools necessary to cut a large block at a 15 degree angle. Also with Christmas just behind me (and a property taxes recently paid) I am looking for an economical way out.
Sound like something you are interested in? Read on.
Start out with a quick trip to the hardware store. Purchased a length of 1x4, two steel plates, and a little bag of wood screws.
Want particulars on what I used? Hopefully you can make out the receipt:
Got out the one power tool I do have and cut the board into two lengths (actually 3, but I only used two sections a bit over a foot long each). It does not matter much if you cut it straight...just eyeball it. As long as it looks good from 5 feet away it'll be fine...trust me!
Grab your steel plates and bend them in half. put about a 90 degree bend in them. This is sort of important that you bend them straight otherwise your block will not be even. For this I recommend using a straight edge of a bench top to give you a straight edge to start the bend. Also bend along a row of holes to keep things straight.
Overlap the edges of the boards as shown and screw on the plate. This is going to work like a hinge that you will eventually bend to 15 degrees. (yeah the last photo and the next are actually reversed...I failed to take a photo of the first plate I bent).
You did rememeber to use the right tool for the job when you open your bag of screws, right?
Take your second plate and similarly bend it in half. Now you are going to use an angle finder, protractor or whatever you have to determine where to fix this plate to lock in your 15 degree angle. Don't have anything? Well use your trig that you hopefully learned in high school. Tangent of 15 degrees is 0.26795. So if you measure out 10 inches from the apex of the angle, your rise shoudl be 2.6795 inches. If you have an iPhone or know someone that does, use a free application to get it good enough for your work.
Here is what my level app showed after I "adjusted" the surface with a few good shoves here and there on the metal plates (they have enough bend in them that you can shove around on things and change the angle a bit).
Looks good to me!
Hope you found this useful...there must be a billion ways to improve on this.
As you see in the second last photo I wrapped some tape around the board to hold things in place. Once I was totally pleased with how things were I ran a screw in front of and behind the plate to hold things in place permanently.
Surprisingly, I found that I could micro adjust the angle by tightening and loosening these screws slightly.
Last edited:
