Customer Reviews

Robert Larson 800-1800 Honing Guide

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I bought one of these jigs years ago and have used it hundreds of hours to create and maintain perfect single facet cutting edges on chisels and plane irons using waterstones. In order to be successful you need to control downward pressure on the portion of the tool being ground and use all of the available surface of the stone. Switch ends on the stone frequently, and periodically flatten the stone using a very flat surface (you can determine a flat surface by a perfect reflection) and waterproof sandpaper. The wheel of the jig can break down waterstone surface so don't let it run in the same place over and over, and don't put pressure on the wheel. I recently purchased several more of these jigs so I can sharpen more tools at one sitting. Use a good straight edge (steel rule), strong back light (white wall) and care to set the tool in the jig. With practice you can re-set the tool very accurately. The great advantage of this jig is that the wheel to bevel line is exactly the same as the surface of the stone. No guessing, just results. Be sure to use a screw driver to firmly tighten the jig before starting and check, double check, setup before comitting work. Use a magnifying glass or loupe to observe the cutting edge as sharpening progresses. Using this jig I was able to obtain a single facet edge on a 1 inch mortise chisle that has lasted over 20 years of moderate use, and still is razor sharp. Got it's first touchup sharpening just last week - good for another decade or two.

The Robert Larson Honing Guide is a simply designed device that works reasonably well for honing chisels and plane irons. The guide holds most blades securely and moves easily over the sharpening stone. The guide works well for chisels with 3-4 inch long blades and widths from 2 inches down to 1/4 inch. Its shortcoming is with blades shorter than 3 inches or narrower than 1/4 inch. The slots in the guide do not hold these smaller blades squarely and honing becomes difficult or impossible. Beefier tools (like mortising chisels) also do not fit well. For the money, a semi-useful tool to have on hand, but for a little more money, better honing guides are available.

When my father died, I inherited his chisles and planes. He had not been able to take care of them for years.

This tool when used with a good set of sharpening stones or mounted, quality sandpaper allowed me to bring my father's tools back to the razor sharpness he was famous for.

I am not the sharpest tool in the box, but this "Honing Guide" has allowed me to now have the sharpest tools!

LOL

My husband has "Scary Sharp"ened at least a dozen blades with this Larson Guide and has had great results. He provided a couple of tips that might help others.

1. Be sure to use a screwdriver to firmly screw the sides TIGHT to lock your blade in place. "Finger tight" is not enough.

2. Using your three middle fingers, keep all downward pressure evenly across the blade's beveled edge to keep it firmly against your stone/abrasive. Use your thumb and little finger BEHIND the threaded rod to push the jig forward horizontally. Pull the jig back using a small portion of the downward force of the three fingers pressed across the blade's edge. The key to preventing any chance of wobbling, rocking or skewing is applying all downward force only to the blade's beveled edge.

3. To sharpen short blades, rest the blade on top of the jig's axle (below the chisel mounting point). Works fine.

HTH

I recently started sharpening my chisels and planes by hand. I use the scary sharp method which basically involves a flat surface with wet sand paper in various grits (I use 220 - 1500).

Until now, I had been trying to maintain the bevel angle by hand. This can really wear out your fingers and can take a long time to get that chisel near perfect. Using this jig makes maintaining that angle a breeze. This is especially important when you are honing your tools for the first time.

I'm sure there are jigs out there that can accommodate more tools. I'm sure there are also jigs out there that are easier to setup and use. However, this one is the best for a beginner like me who just wants to repeat my bevel angle without a lot of fuss.

I was hesitant to buy one of these economical honing guides. There seem to be lots of bad reviews but I figured I wanted one and took a chance on the Robert Larson model. Previously I had use grinders or belt sanders to shape a plane blade or chisel and hone by hand on an oil stone. I was never satisfied with the results I got with my bench planes, so I started looking around at sharpening systems. I settled on the scary sharp method and ordered this guide as I thought it would work. I also found some Granite floor tile on sale at Lowes along with 180 and 320 grit adhesive paper. It took a couple minutes to figure out how the honing guide worked, noting the shapes and sizes of the grooves that hold a plane blade or chisel.
It took only a minute and I was getting good results. It held blades and chisels just fine if you take the time really look what you are doing. I did my plane blades and a set of chisels all in less than an hour. They turned out great considering I only sharpened to a 320 grit.
I recently ordered some 3M micro paper to get a grit range from 1200 to 3000. This make steel reflect like a mirror and sharp like a razor.
Overall I am very satisfied with the honing guide and the results. do some research on blade sharpening and you will do fine with this economical little gem.
I think the problems others have had with these devices relates to abuse and just over working them. They are a honing guide, not a heavy duty sharpening tool

I have only used this jig to sharpen a few plane irons so far. I used it for one large plane iron and it worked very well, I had no trouble securing the iron to the jig and it worked very well to sharpen it. The second plane iron was much shorter and has a much shallower angle, because of that I couldn't secure it in the jig so I wasn't able to use it. Only the last 1 or so of the plane iron was sitting in the jig and it wasn't enough to clamp in tight enough.

I tested some of my chisels in the jig and they all fit well.

Overall this is a good jig and will work very well for most of my tools, I'll have to find another solution for my plane irons that are too short though. Also, be sure to tighten the knob with a screwdriver, finger tightening was not enough for me and the tool moved around a little in the jig.

Worked great for my plane blades, but doesn't hold my chisels very well. And won't work for butt chisels at all. Went and got the Veritas honing guide. More expensive, but worth the money.

I don't know what type of chisel that this particular tool( guide )was designed to fit, but it surely wasn't for any of the 17 chisels in my shop. Let me state that all of my wood chisels (regardless of brand or type) have been precision ground for flatness of back, sides for squareness and parallelism with a 25 degree angle on the cutting edge by using a precision grinding vise on a surface grinder. I have 48 years experience in the tool and die trade, and before retirement, I re-ground all my chisels to the aforementioned specs. This guide will not locate or hold any of my chisels to perform any type of touch up of the cutting edges. I have no idea why the chisel guide portion of this tool was designed as such. I might say that it could be used to sharpen plane blades or irons. I have not tried that operation as of yet. Basically, a really great disappointment. If anyone has a solution as to how to hold any size
chisel in this guide to get satisfactory results, I would surely like to hear from them.

P.S. Finally got to try sharpening plane irons. I have 2 old ( 50 yrs.+) Stanley Bailey planes. This guide worked just fine for
this application. As for holding any square sided chisels and getting good results; forget it.

I've used this honing guide on my three chisels and two hand plane blades. Thankfully it seems to have brought back to life all of those blade. For a long time I had been hand honing and found out that I had managed to round over the edges of the blades. In fact the block plane wasn't working anymore.

While it is pretty much idiot proof as long as you measure correctly, it does require changing the end of the stone that you're working on every once in a while. Also I noticed that it's possible to rock hand plane blades a bit side to side while honing them. You need to keep even pressure at all times. If your hand plane blades are in bad shape like mine were you're going to be working on them for a while (it took me about 4-5 hours for my Stanley No.4 and about 2-3 hours for my block plane).

Still, it works pretty well though I did find I had a bit of an issue with the 1/2 inch chisel to get it set in the guide right. Chisel blades are best inserted with the guide on it's side. Hand planes blades are kind of self guiding since they lay down on the flat part of the guide.