How to Hone a Chisel Micro-Bevel for a Tougher Edge

Not for nuthin'…. But….. if you're honing the whole bevel every time your chisel goes dull, you're working way too hard. A micro-bevel is a skinny second bevel, a few degrees steeper, right at the cutting edge. It takes a couple of minutes, it gives you a tougher edge, and it means touch-ups take a handful of strokes instead of half an afternoon on the stones.

Why it matters: Only the very edge of a chisel does any cutting. Bob Smalser, a boatbuilder who wrote "All About Chisels" for Fine Woodworking, puts it this way: since only a few thousandths of an inch actually cuts, why hone the entire bevel every time? Building the Chamberlain Marblehead gunning dory, a chisel spends its day paring hardwood and cleaning up around glue-ups, and a thin edge rolls or chips fast in that work. A slightly steeper angle right at the tip holds up better, and you get there with less steel coming off. Same story on the GC side: hinge mortises, door hardware and trim scribes all go quicker with a chisel you can get sharp in two minutes.

Materials

• Sharpening stones, coarse to fine. Lie-Nielsen's method uses a 1,000-grit stone to hone, a medium 3,000 for chisel backs, and an 8,000–10,000 finishing stone. Oil stones work too: Lie-Nielsen lists soft, hard and black hard Arkansas as the coarse, medium and fine equivalents.
• Wet/dry sandpaper (120–220 grit) on a flat surface, or a lapping plate, to flatten the stones
• A scrap of plywood and a stop block to build an angle-setting jig (Lie-Nielsen publishes plans)
• Light oil to wipe the chisel down after (Lie-Nielsen recommends jojoba oil)
• A scrap of softwood to test the edge

Tools

• A side-clamp or roller honing guide (Lie-Nielsen, Veritas Mk.II, or an Eclipse-style guide)
• A protractor or angle gauge to set the guide the first time
• A bench grinder or coarse abrasive, only if you're putting a fresh primary bevel on a beat-up edge
• A strong light to read the bevels, and a magnifier if your eyes are like mine

Steps

1. Flatten and polish the back, once. The back of a chisel is a reference surface. It has to be flat for the last inch or so behind the edge and polished as fine as the bevel. Lie-Nielsen works it on the honing stone, then the 3,000, then the finishing stone, sliding the blade on and off the end of the stone so you don't round over the tip. After that first job, the back only ever sees the finishing stone. And unlike a plane iron, never use the "ruler trick" back bevel on a chisel. Lie-Nielsen says it flat out: chisel work needs a flat back.
2. Set the primary bevel at 25°. That's a solid all-around bench-chisel grind. Lie-Nielsen grinds its fishtail chisels at 25°, and "grind at 25°, hone at 30°" is the old rule you'll hear in every shop. (Lie-Nielsen's bevel-edge chisels come ground at 30°, so if you own those, the same 5° bump puts you at 35°.) Hone or grind until the bevel runs all the way to the edge and a burr forms across the whole width. Veritas says the primary bevel should extend at least ⅛″ back from the edge.
3. Raise the angle about 5° for the micro-bevel. Lie-Nielsen recommends an extra 5° on its chisels, and Fine Woodworking's Smalser says raise the handle 2° to 5°. For a stop-block jig with a Lie-Nielsen guide, the company's chart says to shorten the blade's projection from about 1½″ (25°) to about 1⁵⁄₃₂″ (30°). Those distances are approximate and only for Lie-Nielsen's guide. Set other guides with a protractor and make your own stop block. The Veritas Mk.II has a built-in cam: knob at 12 o'clock for the primary, 6 o'clock adds a 1° to 2° micro-bevel. That's less than 5°, but it still does the job.
4. Hone the micro-bevel. On the 1,000 stone, take a few strokes until you can feel a fine burr (wire edge) all the way across the back. Then go to the finishing stone for a few more. Done right, you'll see a thin, bright strip at the very edge. Keep it skinny. It only needs to be a hair wide, roughly ¹⁄₆₄″ to ¹⁄₃₂″, and the narrower it is, the faster it polishes.
5. Kill the burr on the back. Lay the back dead flat on the finishing stone and take a few passes, on and off the end of the stone. Don't lift the handle even a hair. Fine Woodworking warns that lifting the blade while it's moving puts a micro-bevel on the back, and that wrecks the reference surface you just worked for.
6. Test it. Pare across the end grain of a piece of pine. A sharp edge leaves a clean, shiny cut. A dull one crushes and tears the fibers. Then wipe the steel with oil, because a New England shop in October is a rust factory.
7. Touch up fast, regrind once in a while. When the edge dulls, Lie-Nielsen says a quick polish on the finishing stone may be all it takes. To raise a new wire edge, go back to the honing stone first. Every honing makes the micro-bevel a little wider, so Smalser goes back and restores the main bevel every third or fourth honing. Lie-Nielsen says to leave about ¹⁄₆₄″ of the old secondary bevel when you regrind so the square edge stays defined. Then start over at step 3.

Picking your angles: Fine Woodworking's Smalser gives 15°–20° for paring chisels that never see a mallet, 20°–30° for general bench chisels, and 30°–40° for mortise chisels that take a pounding. Lie-Nielsen adds that on very hard woods like oak, hard maple or exotics, you should take lighter cuts and use a higher secondary bevel. My numbers below are a starting point. If an edge chips, go steeper. If it pushes hard and won't take a fine shaving, go lower.

MOAM's shop note: Don't take your good paring chisel to hard epoxy. WEST SYSTEM says to remove or shape squeeze-out as soon as the joint is clamped, while the epoxy is still wet, using a mixing stick with one end sanded to a chisel edge. Once it kicks, it goes through a rubbery "green" stage where you can dent it with a thumbnail, then cures hard enough to sand. So clean it up wet with a stick, and you won't be chopping it off cured with a chisel. When you do have to pare cured squeeze-out, my own trick is to keep a beater chisel with a steeper micro-bevel, around 35°, just for that job. That's my practice, not a number from a book. The most common mistake I see is a micro-bevel that's gotten fat because nobody ever regrinds. When honing starts taking forever, that's your sign.

Sources: Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, Sharpening Instructions (rev. 08/2023), Bevel Edge Chisels and Fishtail Chisels instructions; Bob Smalser, "All About Chisels," Fine Woodworking Tools & Shops 2006; Fine Woodworking, "How to Sharpen a Chisel Freehand"; Lee Valley/Veritas, Mk.II Honing Guide instructions and "Setting Up the MK II Honing Guide"; WEST SYSTEM User Manual and "Epoxy Chemistry Basics."

MOAM Out.

Tools for this tip

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• DMT D8EE Dia-Sharp extra-extra-fine diamond plate: fine diamond plate for the micro-bevel
• Narex Premium bevel-edge chisel set (4 pc): good chisels worth sharpening
• The Complete Guide to Sharpening by Leonard Lee (book): the standard reference on sharpening

Use whatever you already have in the shop; these are just the ones that fit this job.