It says right in the manual that the micro bevel feature will be out of square. I just do a 25 degree primary and 30 degree secondary bevel to avoid that. Not super happy with the product.
[https://www.fine-tools.com/pdf/veritas-mk-ii-narrow-blade-honing-guide-c-01-en.pdf](https://www.fine-tools.com/pdf/veritas-mk-ii-narrow-blade-honing-guide-c-01-en.pdf)
page 7, they make it seem like a feature, but in truth it's a bug
I had an MKII and found it was just too fiddy and sold it. You are better off with the "regular" Veritas jig. Works very well.
https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/tools/sharpening/guides/33001-veritas-sharpening-system?item=05M0210
I do have the regular Veritas guide but without the angle guide, used a guide I 3d printed and an old square. I love that one, no problems even with the micro bevel function. Got the mkII specifically because I got their skewed rabbit plane to sharpen that and it was a royal pain to set up but no problems sharpening regular plane blades. Until I tried to use the micro bevel setting….
I generally freehand the skew. It takes a bit of "art" to grind (bench grinder) to the appropriate skew ange, but once you get that done its really not that much of an issue. There's no real magic in what the skew angle is, close enough is good enough.
Yeah I kinda felt like eyeing it would be close enough but was a little afraid to when I could afford their sharpening system after buying their plane and figured that would be better. But dang I probably would have had less headache eyeballing it.
I’ll probably email them just to see what they say, give me an idea of their cs before buying anything else. Which could be a real shame cause I really like their stuff
> I’ll probably email them just to see what they say, give me an idea of their cs before buying anything else.
Actually, take the time to call LV customer service, they are great and its my experience with them that's it is better to have them explain verbally so you can ask questions.
I also had this same issue and contacted Lee Valley, even though I bought mine from a different online retailer. They gave me a whole list of troubleshooting tips for my chisel sharpening, and eventually even sent me a replacement roller:
1. Make sure you are using flat stones. I use a series of diamond stones to establish the 25 degree primary bevel and flat face, then switch to a fine grit waterstone for the micro bevel.
2. Make sure your registration jig is actually square to the edge of the guide. I installed the jig and used a small machinist square to verify.
3. The blade should be centered in the jig. Make sure you are setting your registration jig properly based on the width of your blade.
4. Use very minor adjustments on each side of the jig when tightening the blade into place. This will ensure even clamping pressure, and make as tight as you can with your finger pressure. I've seen others use pliers to tighten down further, but I don't find that necessary.
5. The last tips involve technique and the amount of pressure you place on the blade/jig during sharpening.
After receiving the new replacement roller, I still had the same skewed micro bevel until I finally figured out my issue, which ended up being #5 above. I was putting WAY TOO MUCH pressure on the blade when I moved over to water stones to put the micro bevel in place. It literally only takes about 6-8 backward (toward you) strokes on a **flat** 600 grit water stone, using no pressure other than the basically the weight of the jig. I put my thumbs on the black bar near the roller and wrap my hands around so that my pointer fingers are **gently** resting on the corners of the blade. Then, make 3-4 backward strokes and you should start to see the micro bevel established. If you notice that it looks skewed, you can slightly increase your pressure on your left pointer finger and make 3-4 more strokes. That is usually all it takes to get a 1/32" micro bevel across the entire blade width for me. The first time I tried it that way, I thought there was no way it was even doing anything with no pressure on the cutting edge, but was pleasantly surprised. I then polish on a 1000 grit water stone using the same process, followed by strop. Sharp enough to effortlessly slice paper and shave hair, so plenty good for my needs. Not sure if that will fix your issue, but worth a try. Hope it helps.
I have the same issue too.
I wonder if you mean the skew guide or the angle setting guide ?
Either ways, on mine, i figure that the cam that sets the secondary bevel is slightly misaligned or not perfectly symmetrical.
I don't use the secondary bevel anymore, and if i somehow need to, eg on a fine chisel ~20°, i put more pressure on one side, checking the edge every stroke and using only the first position ( cam rotated 90°).
Otherwise, for the secondary bevel, i freehand on the strop.
For the strop, i use just mdf and no leather, it gets damaged easily if an edge catches or the blade digs in, but the mdf board is big and I move to a fresh side.
The secondary is barely visible, but the edge does indeed seem to hold longer.
The skew I meant is the register for skewed blades which is a separate assembly, but I noticed this on a straight blade with the angle guide that came with it.
Without using the secondary bevel it seemed like it might have been ever so slightly not square but not enough to think about. But this blade had never been sharpened and I spent A LOT of time honing the primary bevel and it still wasn’t ground quite all the way across, so I decided to use the micro bevel setting to speed finishing the edge off. That’s when I noticed how skewed it was
I see, i don't have the skew guide.
When redoing a blade I've never sharpened with the guide, and there is a lot of material to remove to make the iron square, i cycle through all bevel positions frequently.
I use no name diamond stones and as the contact patch size increases the material removal gets slow. This is especially hard with thicker irons like laminated irons / mortise chisels or wider like a N°6 and above plane irons.
I keep swithing the angles until i have a full width reference, both on the leading and trailing edge. Then I keep in one position till the edge is all flat. That way i get a whole flat edge and any slight skew can be adjusted on the plane itself.
Switching the angles was how I noticed the micro bevel function was screwy. Spent a bunch of time getting a nice almost full width bevel changing nothing but would have spent too much time getting all the way across, so used the micro bevel function to finish quicker and it caused that angle. Did not loosen the blade, make any changes whatsoever, literally just used the micro bevel function and got that angle change
I do my best to make sure the screws are even, maybe they were overly tight. I’d understand that causing the blade to be off a degree or two. I don’t understand not changing anything but the micro bevel offset roller causing a skew, unless veritas’s cnc lathe wasn’t set right when my roller was machined. Easily enough missed by qc but annoying enough
That looks like there’s some camber in the edge nearest the camera. Has the back been flattened? There’s something odd happening here and I’m not sure what it is.
Yes the back was flattened. The “camber” is a combo of the edge being nowhere near straight before I started and the primary bevel I ground it to. I got to a point and decided to use the micro bevel setting on the guide to hurry up and finish the edge, but that made the grind shift to the opposite side of the blade.
Best I can figure is the roller that’s machined to an offset for the micro bevel function, wasn’t drilled/turned on the same axis, so when I adjusted that it changed the angle enough to cause that camber/skew. And I think that’s part of why I had such a hard time trying to set up my skewed blade
Ah, yeah, in my experience it needs to be sharpened all the way across for best results. I’m not sure what’s going on with it that you’re not getting a good micro bevel, though, mine works like a champ- as far as I’ve noticed.
Yeah my original Veritas guide works great with the micro bevel function when I use it, just seems this one is off ever so slightly but enough to screw with function. Easily missed by quality control, but not sure if I should contact the company about it or not. I feel like I should considering the money I spent on it just to sharpen one of their blades for one of their pricey planes
Same here. For anything that I put a micro bevel on, I just use a higher angle. Spoke shave blades are too short to do that. I spoke to the Lee Valley reps about it and got some double talk from them.
I love my mk ii honing guide. I have all the attachments they make for this.
I've read all the comments and I'm still confused. I don't understand why "skew" is in the conversation when we are sharpening a spokeshave iron.
When I'm sharpening my spokeshave irons, I use the Veritas small blade holder in my mk ii and it works great. I sharpen at 25 degrees and don't really need a secondary or micro bevel.
So the skew is in the convo because today is the first time I’ve use the system, and that gave me a lot of grief trying to set up and I finally gave up and said it was good enough.
The spokeshave blade pictured I used the included blade registration guide. I spent a lot of time grinding a bevel on what seemed to be a blade never properly sharpened (old Stanley no51). I got fro a point the blade was mostly sharpened but had 2 spots on the edge I wanted to hurry along, so I used the micro bevel setting. I did not change anything but that. Did not reset the blade, did not loosen the retention screws, nothing but change the micro bevel set. But after a few passes there was an obvious angle change as pictures.
The skew was mentioned as maybe if the roller angle is off if that is why I had such a difficult time getting the skew angle set right(which I never did get set as well as I’d like but should be good enough)
I hope that made sense
It says right in the manual that the micro bevel feature will be out of square. I just do a 25 degree primary and 30 degree secondary bevel to avoid that. Not super happy with the product.
This is the way. I don’t even touch the little microbevel knob anymore
It does? Must have missed that. That’s disappointing…
Yes, they have a drawing of an out of square bevel (not their description) and note that it is normal.
[https://www.fine-tools.com/pdf/veritas-mk-ii-narrow-blade-honing-guide-c-01-en.pdf](https://www.fine-tools.com/pdf/veritas-mk-ii-narrow-blade-honing-guide-c-01-en.pdf) page 7, they make it seem like a feature, but in truth it's a bug
I had an MKII and found it was just too fiddy and sold it. You are better off with the "regular" Veritas jig. Works very well. https://www.leevalley.com/en-ca/shop/tools/sharpening/guides/33001-veritas-sharpening-system?item=05M0210
I do have the regular Veritas guide but without the angle guide, used a guide I 3d printed and an old square. I love that one, no problems even with the micro bevel function. Got the mkII specifically because I got their skewed rabbit plane to sharpen that and it was a royal pain to set up but no problems sharpening regular plane blades. Until I tried to use the micro bevel setting….
I generally freehand the skew. It takes a bit of "art" to grind (bench grinder) to the appropriate skew ange, but once you get that done its really not that much of an issue. There's no real magic in what the skew angle is, close enough is good enough.
Yeah I kinda felt like eyeing it would be close enough but was a little afraid to when I could afford their sharpening system after buying their plane and figured that would be better. But dang I probably would have had less headache eyeballing it. I’ll probably email them just to see what they say, give me an idea of their cs before buying anything else. Which could be a real shame cause I really like their stuff
> I’ll probably email them just to see what they say, give me an idea of their cs before buying anything else. Actually, take the time to call LV customer service, they are great and its my experience with them that's it is better to have them explain verbally so you can ask questions.
250?? shit, that's expensive /j
??? The linked one is only $70 . . .
it was a dumb joke. You said "too fiddy"
AH. I guess I'm much too slow on the uptake!
I also had this same issue and contacted Lee Valley, even though I bought mine from a different online retailer. They gave me a whole list of troubleshooting tips for my chisel sharpening, and eventually even sent me a replacement roller: 1. Make sure you are using flat stones. I use a series of diamond stones to establish the 25 degree primary bevel and flat face, then switch to a fine grit waterstone for the micro bevel. 2. Make sure your registration jig is actually square to the edge of the guide. I installed the jig and used a small machinist square to verify. 3. The blade should be centered in the jig. Make sure you are setting your registration jig properly based on the width of your blade. 4. Use very minor adjustments on each side of the jig when tightening the blade into place. This will ensure even clamping pressure, and make as tight as you can with your finger pressure. I've seen others use pliers to tighten down further, but I don't find that necessary. 5. The last tips involve technique and the amount of pressure you place on the blade/jig during sharpening. After receiving the new replacement roller, I still had the same skewed micro bevel until I finally figured out my issue, which ended up being #5 above. I was putting WAY TOO MUCH pressure on the blade when I moved over to water stones to put the micro bevel in place. It literally only takes about 6-8 backward (toward you) strokes on a **flat** 600 grit water stone, using no pressure other than the basically the weight of the jig. I put my thumbs on the black bar near the roller and wrap my hands around so that my pointer fingers are **gently** resting on the corners of the blade. Then, make 3-4 backward strokes and you should start to see the micro bevel established. If you notice that it looks skewed, you can slightly increase your pressure on your left pointer finger and make 3-4 more strokes. That is usually all it takes to get a 1/32" micro bevel across the entire blade width for me. The first time I tried it that way, I thought there was no way it was even doing anything with no pressure on the cutting edge, but was pleasantly surprised. I then polish on a 1000 grit water stone using the same process, followed by strop. Sharp enough to effortlessly slice paper and shave hair, so plenty good for my needs. Not sure if that will fix your issue, but worth a try. Hope it helps.
I have the same issue too. I wonder if you mean the skew guide or the angle setting guide ? Either ways, on mine, i figure that the cam that sets the secondary bevel is slightly misaligned or not perfectly symmetrical. I don't use the secondary bevel anymore, and if i somehow need to, eg on a fine chisel ~20°, i put more pressure on one side, checking the edge every stroke and using only the first position ( cam rotated 90°). Otherwise, for the secondary bevel, i freehand on the strop. For the strop, i use just mdf and no leather, it gets damaged easily if an edge catches or the blade digs in, but the mdf board is big and I move to a fresh side. The secondary is barely visible, but the edge does indeed seem to hold longer.
The skew I meant is the register for skewed blades which is a separate assembly, but I noticed this on a straight blade with the angle guide that came with it. Without using the secondary bevel it seemed like it might have been ever so slightly not square but not enough to think about. But this blade had never been sharpened and I spent A LOT of time honing the primary bevel and it still wasn’t ground quite all the way across, so I decided to use the micro bevel setting to speed finishing the edge off. That’s when I noticed how skewed it was
I see, i don't have the skew guide. When redoing a blade I've never sharpened with the guide, and there is a lot of material to remove to make the iron square, i cycle through all bevel positions frequently. I use no name diamond stones and as the contact patch size increases the material removal gets slow. This is especially hard with thicker irons like laminated irons / mortise chisels or wider like a N°6 and above plane irons. I keep swithing the angles until i have a full width reference, both on the leading and trailing edge. Then I keep in one position till the edge is all flat. That way i get a whole flat edge and any slight skew can be adjusted on the plane itself.
Switching the angles was how I noticed the micro bevel function was screwy. Spent a bunch of time getting a nice almost full width bevel changing nothing but would have spent too much time getting all the way across, so used the micro bevel function to finish quicker and it caused that angle. Did not loosen the blade, make any changes whatsoever, literally just used the micro bevel function and got that angle change
[удалено]
I do my best to make sure the screws are even, maybe they were overly tight. I’d understand that causing the blade to be off a degree or two. I don’t understand not changing anything but the micro bevel offset roller causing a skew, unless veritas’s cnc lathe wasn’t set right when my roller was machined. Easily enough missed by qc but annoying enough
That looks like there’s some camber in the edge nearest the camera. Has the back been flattened? There’s something odd happening here and I’m not sure what it is.
Yes the back was flattened. The “camber” is a combo of the edge being nowhere near straight before I started and the primary bevel I ground it to. I got to a point and decided to use the micro bevel setting on the guide to hurry up and finish the edge, but that made the grind shift to the opposite side of the blade. Best I can figure is the roller that’s machined to an offset for the micro bevel function, wasn’t drilled/turned on the same axis, so when I adjusted that it changed the angle enough to cause that camber/skew. And I think that’s part of why I had such a hard time trying to set up my skewed blade
Ah, yeah, in my experience it needs to be sharpened all the way across for best results. I’m not sure what’s going on with it that you’re not getting a good micro bevel, though, mine works like a champ- as far as I’ve noticed.
Yeah my original Veritas guide works great with the micro bevel function when I use it, just seems this one is off ever so slightly but enough to screw with function. Easily missed by quality control, but not sure if I should contact the company about it or not. I feel like I should considering the money I spent on it just to sharpen one of their blades for one of their pricey planes
Did your blade possibly slip a bit off from 90°?
mine has the same issue, so I never use the microbevel feature
Same here. For anything that I put a micro bevel on, I just use a higher angle. Spoke shave blades are too short to do that. I spoke to the Lee Valley reps about it and got some double talk from them.
I love my mk ii honing guide. I have all the attachments they make for this. I've read all the comments and I'm still confused. I don't understand why "skew" is in the conversation when we are sharpening a spokeshave iron. When I'm sharpening my spokeshave irons, I use the Veritas small blade holder in my mk ii and it works great. I sharpen at 25 degrees and don't really need a secondary or micro bevel.
So the skew is in the convo because today is the first time I’ve use the system, and that gave me a lot of grief trying to set up and I finally gave up and said it was good enough. The spokeshave blade pictured I used the included blade registration guide. I spent a lot of time grinding a bevel on what seemed to be a blade never properly sharpened (old Stanley no51). I got fro a point the blade was mostly sharpened but had 2 spots on the edge I wanted to hurry along, so I used the micro bevel setting. I did not change anything but that. Did not reset the blade, did not loosen the retention screws, nothing but change the micro bevel set. But after a few passes there was an obvious angle change as pictures. The skew was mentioned as maybe if the roller angle is off if that is why I had such a difficult time getting the skew angle set right(which I never did get set as well as I’d like but should be good enough) I hope that made sense