ATLIN Honing Guide - Sharpening Jig for Chisels 1/8” to 1-7/8”, Planer Blades 1-3/8” to 3-1/8”

I got this to help me sharpen blades from a couple of planes I have. One of them was a cheap #33 plane (I got it from Harbor Freight, but it's also available from Amazon). As usual, the blade was in poor shape, with several large nicks. I thought it would take me hours to remove them, but using this honing guide with an inexpensive diamond hone available from Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Knife-Sharpener-Sharpening-Stone/dp/B002MLE5E2/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1523846760&sr=8-10&keywords=diamond+hone) I was able to get it into great shape in about 20 minutes. I finished it with some 1000 grit sandpaper. Be sure to follow the directions on the back of the card it comes with to set the correct distance for the blade angle. And like the instructions say, tighten the holding screw with a screwdriver, not your hand, to make sure the blade doesn't move while you are sharpening it. I've also got a blade from a 19th century Stanley #132 jointer plane that I will do next. That blade is too wide for the diamond hone so I will need to find a wider whetstone. But I don't expect any problems--this tool is very easy to use and well made.UPDATE: I was able to use this tool with the same diamond hone on the 19th century Stanley blade and got it to work well. I just moved the blade back and forth across the hone as I went forward and back and it sharpened up nicely.

This is a handy and essential tool for honing chisels and planer blades to a straight, even and sharp edge. The instructions were well written showing how to attach different blade types into the appropriate slots in the guide. What the instructions were a little unclear on was how to adjust the blade being honed so that the angle of the blade landed true with the honing stone, not a big problem once you've checked the cutting angle and how the cut face landed onto the honing stone. The only other shortcoming I found was that to hone mortise chisels, the type I was sharpening, there was not a set of dedicated slots to hold the blade, but instructions that said to place the blade directly on the two guide pins of the guide. This left the blade a little loose, which required thatI held the blade down in place to maintain the proper angle. Not a big deal, but an additional set of alignment slots would have been beneficial. Otherwise I would have rated this guide a full 5 stars.

Works very well. Not too hard to figure out how to use.

Thanks to this guide and a set of cheap diamond stones (also from Amazon), plus some polishing compound and a scrap of denim from my sewing pile, I have finally experienced the pleasure of hand planing without breaking a sweat and watching transparent curly shavings emerge from my hand plane. The planed board is so smooth, it's ready to finish!I thought I could freehand sharpen, and yes, the edges I got from freehand sharpening were OK, but with this guide, my bevels are finally straight and even. The little instruction sheet is CRITICAL to read. It has clearly been refined over a long time by watching customers misunderstand or ignore their instructions and returning the guide or reviewing them poorly and unfairly. I had questions (why one rounded side? why does my tool keep slipping off?) and the instructions answered both (because rounded side = 1 point of contact = actually more stable, and you NEED to tighten the screw with a screwdriver, not by hand - I constantly forget this). I could tell from that little sheet of paper that Atlin is a business that knows sharpening, cares about both sharpening and its customers, and wants them to succeed. Not your average Chinese copycat mass producer of crap, although their stuff is made in China.Anyway, with the screw properly tightened, I was able to push and pull the blade and guide along my stones without the blade budging. And since the blade doesn't budge, I can apply pressure on both the push and the pull stroke, and grind away metal twice as fast. Game changer for a lazy impatient person like me. I get a consistent burr in seconds. I use a fine tip Sharpie and a try square to draw a line on the back of the blade, perpendicular to the side, where the guide should sit, so I don't have to measure every time. Come to think of it, I should draw that line on the side so it's not ground away during the flattening.I had no trouble with the guide wobbling, even with just one roller. Would I prefer a wider roller, or 2 rollers? Maybe. But all I have to do is use my index fingers to apply firm pressure on both sides of the back of the bevel, just above the stone, while my thumbs rest on the back of the guide. That keeps the guide flat on its roller. And I find that pressure points matter - the grinding isn't as good if I push anywhere other than the edge, so that's the best place to apply pressure anyway.Where I do have trouble is tightening the screw. It's hard to find a way to hold the blade in the guide at the right depth and turning the screwdriver while avoiding the roller, because if I touch the roller and it turns, it knocks the blade out of place. The best position seems to be to hold it in my left hand, let the roller hang in the gap between middle and ring finger, use my left thumb to hold the blade against the guide, and use my right hand to tighten.An actual complaint: this is on me for not reading the description, but it can't fit plane irons less than 1 3/8". And I learned the hard way that my block plane iron is 1". So, not taking stars off, but you should be aware of that.

While being fairly adequate it does tend to wobble a bit causing an out of square edge being applied to the end of the chisel. Must pay close attention to keep it square.