FaithfullFAIHG Honing Guide For Bevel edge chisels and plane irons

I read most of the reviews, and did some internet research before buying. In brief this is a good product, but you need to do some fettling before it works really well. There are guides on YouTube as to how to make the necessary adjustments, so I won't go into them here in detail, but all it needs is a file and about 15 minutes to make the product work for both plane irons and small files. One side of the jaws is curved and the other is flat - it is meant to be like this to give three points of contact to avoid wobbling (like a three legged stool does not wobble, but a four legged one can). Some people commented on the small roller wheel making it difficult to hone small chisels - I have only sharpened down to 12mm chisels so far, but found no issue. I imagine care will be required on my 4mm chisel, but certainly it will be a lot easier than trying to maintain a constant 30 degree angle by hand alone. This design of honing tool is a classic and has been around for decades - It works. Just one further tip - sand the angle/distance information on the end to remove the blue coating and make it much easier to read. A good buy.

Product arrived well packaged and in a timely manner. Product exactly as described.Got this on a whim as it was not expensive just to see what it was like as I have never used anything like it before.I have to say my experience so far has being mixed. It is easy to fix blades into the honing guide securely by tightening the silver screw on the side and I found it worked well when sharpening larger blades which utilize the wider grip on top (Jack and smoothing planes) while the narrower inner grips (for bevel edged chisels and smaller blades from spoke shaves etc) are much harder to get to work properly and to keep the blade square. The grips are not manufactured to a high standard and have being given a thick coat of paint which makes matters worse.I really liked the idea behind this product so grinded away the excessive blue paint from the inner jaws, as suggested by other reviewers, and this help somewhat. Impressed with my modifications I have also since carefully filed away part of the inner jaws so they now grip square edged chisels as well and have ended up with a really handy tool.I am now getting much better and far more even edges on my blades than I used to.Despite my earlier mixed results from this product I still have to give it four stars due to its price point and the fact it worked well with larger blades out of the box. Also with only minimal modification I have ended up with a really nice tool.

This honing guide is best described as usable and cheap.It can hold a wide selection of tools, from plane irons (fits my Stanley No. 5) down to small-ish chisels. The knurled knob is good enough and it is enough to securely fit your tool.However, the major issue with this honing guide is the wobble in its bearing. This wobble isn't that frustating when sharpening plane irons as they are wide enough to be stable, but makes the guide nearly unusable for thin chisels.I bought this mainly to help with sharpening plane irons to different bevel angles, which it works well enough for given the price. But if you are buying mainly for use with chisels I'd recommend spending a bit more for something better built.

This product is terribly made. One side of the jaw it holds the blade with is curved (not sure if this is intentional or not but it's a problem regardless) so it doesn't hold the blade straight resulting in you often getting squint edges on your chisels and plane irons. The wheel at the bottom also wasn't perfectly round so it bumps slightly when you roll it on the stone.From what I can tell you're best off finding any honing guide that isn't this generic design, it seems that these are all made in the same Chinese factory to the same terrible standard. That's what I did anyway and I ended up with a more expensive Trend honing guide which while not perfect does the job pretty well.

Ordered this to substitute the cheaper Chinese one which is difficult to use due to burr and bent thumb screw.. well this has a bent casting on the left (not the curve that is part of the design)and does not hold a chisel straight or secured so is just as bad.. will have to make my own adjustments to this to work ., have now filed and tuned this to work well by widening the chisel holding grooves and filing off the flat surfaces so the planer blade lays flat when clamped.. so if your willing to do that there ok...