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Secondary Bevel?
Some people recommend that you should put a secondary bevel (or microbevel) on your
plane irons and wood chisels. The reason is that the honing work after the grinding is quicker
since you do not need to hone the entire surface of the bevel, just the smaller new bevel
at the tip.
For wood chisels there is a drawback with a secondary bevel since you do not have the
support of the large original bevel to control the cutting in the wood.
Since the grinding and honing of the entire bevel with the Tormek method is an easy and fast
operation, there is no need for a secondary bevel. With a single bevel, you can set exactly
the angle that you want and easily maintain it at every grinding and honing.
Reduced support length
with a secondary bevel
on a wood chisel.
Support length with
a monobevel.
Hone the back free hand. Hold
the tool so that it is at a tangent
to the wheel.
Do not hold the tool at a
steeper angle than the tangent!
The tip will be rounded off.
Edge Angle
Plane irons, wood chisels and spoke shave blades are
usually ground with a 25° edge angle (
α
). If you need to
work delicate details with a wood chisel in soft wood, you
can decrease the edge angle down to 20°. If you work in
hard wood and when using a mallet, you must increase the
edge angle to 30°.