Dead Edge Honing Guide


Set your angle.
Select your sharpening plate.
Place your edged tool.
Sharpen.
That’s it.

Sharpen your tools, your way

Six strong magnets hold onto steel-backed sharpening plates, the most commonly used sharpening stones

You choose what brand, grit, and style of stone you want to use for your own system and preferences

No proprietary sharpening media, no lock-in to expensive branded replacements

Accepts most standard woodworking plane blades and chisels, no adjustment for width required

Premium construction

Made from a carefuly selected combination of aluminum, delrin, and stainless steel

Industrial strength linear bearings for smooth motion that will last a lifetime

Ergonomic design

Indents and gentle curves guide your hands and tools to exactly where they should be

No need to clamp tools down, just gently push forward with your thumb

FAQs

  • Almost all “standard” woodworking chisels or plane blades are fully compatible, from ¼” or 6mm chisels all the way up to 2 ⅜” extra wide plane blades. The only major requirements are that 1) the sharpening edge is perpendicular to the sides of the tool, 3) have a flat back for referencing, and 3) there must be at least 3” or 7.5cm of straight unobstructed reference plane on the the back side of the plane blade or chisel.

    The most common issues with compatibility are blades that are 1) too short (e.g spokeshave blades or stubby chisels), 2) have sides that are not square to the edge (e.g. skew chisels or plane blades), or 3) too narrow to comfortably hold with your thumb (e.g. chisels narrower than ¼” or 6mm). However, we are currently developing add-ons for the Dead Edge for sharpening these kinds of specialty blades.

  • The Dead Edge Honing Guide is designed to be compatible with the most common types of diamond or CBN sharpening plates. Most sharpening plates with a magnetic backing material are compatible with the Dead Edge Honing Guide. We recommend 8” x 3” sharpening plates that are about 3/8” thick, but the Dead Edge Honing Guide works with nearly any standard size of sharpening plate.

    While we have not tested every brand of stones on the market, we have found that the Dead Edge works well with popular brands such as those from DMT, Trend, and Ultra Sharp.

    The Dead Edge Honing Guide is not compatible with water or oil stones, which are typically both non-magnetic and too thick for this purpose. Future versions may add compatibility for other types of sharpening media.

  • Yes, if you adhere the sharpening media to a magnetic plate. If you already have a diamond plate made from a magnetic material, you can adhere your media to the “bottom” of the plate and get double use out of it. If you do not have a plate suitable, we plan to have machined steel blanks available for purchase in the future.

    Atoma brand sharpening plates are constructed as a sheet of diamond stones adhered to an aluminum plate base, which are non-magnetic and not compatible with this system. However, Atoma also sells the sheet alone as replacements. You can purchase a replacement sheet and adhere it to a blank magnetic plate.

    In the near future, we are hoping to offer As a bonus, you can even purchase two sheets (e.g. two different grits) and adhere them to opposite sides of the blank, creating a convenient two-sided stone.

    In the near future, we hope to offer magnetic steel backing plate blanks to adhere sharpening media, but this is not yet available.

    Future developments for the Dead Edge may include a plate backer which uses mechanical clamping to be compatible with non-magnetic plates, but these are not available at this time.

  • YES! The Dead Edge Honing guide allows feathering or light cambers for smoothing plane blades, no problem! When in use, most of your fingers are relatively free, except the thumb holding the tool. Just press lightly on the corners of the plane blade for a few strokes. That extra bit of pressure will lightly feather the edges.

  • While this could happen in theory, in practice this is a non-issue. After a few years of testing, we have not noticed much of any clogging or magnetization of the plates on standard commercial diamond plates. The swarf typically comes right off the plate with a quick spritz, just as if the magnets were not there. We do not recommend storing your diamond plate on the plate backer, but leaving it there while you are working for the day has not had any noticeable impact. That said, we have not tested every combination of commercially available sharpening plates, so it is possible that your experience may differ.

  • We designed the height of the backing plate 1) so that it has extra room to move the sharpening media up and down to change where the blade hits meets the plate, and 2) so that the stone can be turned around to access the other half. Between those two features, in most cases you will have access to the whole surface area of the plate for most tools. That said, in the case where you are sharpening a very small chisel (e.g. 1/4") with a large plate (8"x3") the very middle section may not be fully accessible.

  • We QC and hand inspect every unit here in Durham, NC, but things do happen. If it’s wrong, we’ll make it right, plain and simple. All Dead Edge Honing Guides have a one year manufacturing defect guarantee.