Lie Nielsen Honing Guide

[Chance Beasley]

I was looking at the Lie Nielsen Honing Guide and was about to pull the trigger when I saw a small disclaimer on their website that said their guide doesn't guarantee to fit all chisel brands. I have some Blue Spruce Butt Chisels that I want to make sure they will work before purchasing.

Has anyone tried the jig with butt chisels? Specifically Blue Spruce?

 

[Birdhunter]

I have the LN honing guide. It’s an excellent aid to getting a consistent edge on chisels and plane irons.

LN offers several jaw sets for the guide. I’ve found that one or another jaw set will accommodate anything from a wide plane iron to a 1/8” chisel. But, I have not found any one jaw set that will accommodate every need.

LN has plans for a jig that works with the honing guide to set the angle the same every time. The jig is well worth the time to build.

I have used the guide with LN chisels. I have a set of Blue Spurce chisels, yet unused. I don’t have the butt chisels in either brand.

My guess is that the guide would work.

 

[grbmds]

You could probably call LN and ask them about Blue Spruce chisels. The guide is designed to work with LN chisels, I guess, because that was the only standard that they could easily make it work to. However, the only chisels I've had problems using it with were those that don't have sides which are square to edge and chisels which are thicker than normal. The result for me is that I have a couple of blades and chisels which don't work with it and I have to sharpen those another way. Almost all of mine do though. It's the best guide I've owned and that includes the Veritas guide; better than that. Once you make the setup guide to set the angles it's the easiest I've ever used.

 

[derekcohen]

I was using a couple of Blue Spruce dovetail chisels today. I freehand them, but I had the LN guide to hand. I can tell you with certainty that the 1/4" BS will not fit in the jaws of the base LN guide (the rebates in the jaws are too deep to tighten the width of the chisel). A 3/8" may just fit. Close call. 1/2" and up should be fine.

Consider the Veritas MkII guide with small blade jig. That will work perfectly.

Regards from Perth

Derek

 

[Birdhunter]

LN sells a jaw set that works with a 1/8” chisel.

I tried a couple of my Blue Spruce chisels in the LN guide. They fit fine. They are not butt chisels.

 

[grbmds]

The shorter the chisel the less likely they will fit in the LN jig regardless of which jaws are used. I bought 2 additional sets of jaws but ended up returning them as neither worked with a couple of my chisels. Good news is that the jig does work with most of my chisels.