I use this setup to sharpen my wood chisels:
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It is just a simple wooden frame, with a steel clamp to hold the chisel. This clamp can be rotated to adjust the filing angle roughly. Fine angle adjustments are done by moving the chisel forward / backward within the clamp. The angle I use for my chisels is about 25 degrees. Kitchen knives I sharpen to a bevel angle of maybe 7 degrees, using a different clamping arrangement.
The file I use is a long stainless steel rod with a wooden handle, holding two movable clamps. The file(s) itself is diamond, with grits from 80 to 2000, plus a leather strop, available from e.g. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005...d81085b6b22-17.
There is, obviously, no reason that the file needs to be diamond. Any steel file will do as readily, using clamps suitable to the file's geometry.
In use, the major difference is that I can use (nearly) the full length of the file, I am not limiting the usable file stroke by where the vise permits me to put the roller. And, by having a larger file stroke, I file faster (more of the file clears the workpiece so that the swarf will fall off) and more accurately (there is less play in the setup to mess up the filing angle)


Quote Originally Posted by uv8452 View Post
So I started with something simple and doable; which is - by the way - the royal road to any novelty.
And then you compare your own design with what others have done, and you learn to do even better . . .

And here I have to take to task Jon and Altair, who try their utmost best to obscure where the clips they put on homemadetools.com come from. And thus, they limit the learning potential homemadetools.com provides, and its usefulness. Instead, they add lots of clutter which is, ultimately, GARBAGE.