Your thoughts on the Kell Honing Guides

[ronkan]

The discussion in another thread about Lie Nielsen's new honing guide not working well with chisels that have tapered lands made me wonder if the Kell guides were a better choice for me. I have lots of older tools - Witherby, Stanley, etc. a great set of Barr bench chisels, and a couple of Ray Iles mortise chisels. I'm wondering if the Kell guides would be the most accepting of my varied lot.
Another question/concern stems from the Kell's two-wheel setup. Do you find it this a problem when sharpening plane blades because the wheels (rollers) would have to ride on a surface next to the stone rather than the stone itself.
Any thoughts or insights you can offer would be much appreciates.

[Mike Brady]

Kell guides are so light and so far forward on a chisel blade that they are hard to control. They also lack a place to hold them securely. If you get one get the big wheel version. It fits further back on the blade.

[cputnam]

I have the big wheel version of the guide. I bought it as the narrow, mortise chisel and spokeshave blade solution before Veritas came out with their narrow chisel guide. I tend to hold the setup with one hand - my index finger on the chisel (over the top of the guide) and other fingers supporting the chisel from underneath - which works for me.

I've not yet put together a projection gauge so the setup can be a little fiddly especially with my shaky hands. I like the way it locks up tight with just fingers on the nut. I use 3" wide stones which makes wider blades rather problematic. I use the Veritas guide for plane irons so overall, the guide is a useful addition to my kit.

[Anak]

My Kell guide is my preferred chisel guide, but I like the Veritas Mk II for plane blades.

Larger wheels are definitely a good thing. I made my own large wheels before it was an option. Major improvement. The only downside is when trying to clamp thin chisels. You can't keep a finger in there in order to maintain pressure while tightening the guide. It is a minor trade-off for a major improvement.

[Admiral]

LIL

No guide is perfect. Fact of life. Each has its optimal use, none is universal. In my experience, the basic useful jig is the eclipse style. You can't go wrong starting with it. Expand from there. The vintage Stanley 200 is also good for plane irons and wider chisels, General knocked it off well, the basic Veritas jig set is good too. Everything else is a variation on these themes, but Jim (Boatman) has a good idea going with his variation, very innovative. It's the endless quest.

[Steve Friedman]

Until the recent LV and L-N offerings, I think the Kell guide was the only guide that would secure a narrow blade. But, as other have said, there are drawbacks. One is that I can't ever find a comfortable place to keep my fingers. They always seem to be in the way. Another drawback is that the outboard wheels mean that the if you have a wide blade and a narrow stone, the wheels won't ride on the stone unless you hone with short diagonal strokes. Before getting the L-N guide, it was also the best thing I found for spokeshave blades. My water stones are just wide enough so that a part of the wheels could still ride on the stone, but it didn't take much to go off the edge.

Also, the Kell guide rides on top of the blade. I have tried it on my Ray Iles mortise chisels and the wheels are up in the air. I have worked around it by putting the blade on top of the guide, but that means you're registered off the bevel side instead of the back.

I must say the one of the nicest thing about the Kell guide is that it's the perfect travel guide. It's the smallest guide out there and you don't need an angle setting jig - just a small ruler to set the projection. You'll memorize the distances pretty quickly.

Steve

[AndyM]

I really wanted to like mine but I never use it. As others have said, the wheels are too close to the front.

[ronkan]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts.
Steve has very graciously offered to lend his Kells to me to try. I will think of all the points raised in this thread as I see how they work for me and keeping in minds Rich's caveat that no one guide does it all.
ron

[Yetloh]

AndyM said:

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I really wanted to like mine but I never use it. As others have said, the wheels are too close to the front.

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My experience exactly.

The Eclipse type is good for western chisels and plane irons but hopeless for Japanese chisels. Who wants to mess around changing jaws, no matter how well made the jig is (LN).

For me, the best and most versatile jig currently available is the narrow Veritas Mk2 with the standard blade carrier for plane irons and skews, but you do need to make proper support and blade registration jigs (a different one for each blade carrier) which will mean you can abandon that horrible blade registration attachment which otherwise needs to go on and off for every blade and doesn't even work very well. Making the jigs takes a fair amount of time but once made you will have all the easy functionality you will ever need. I can provide details of the jigs if anyone wants them.

Jim

[cputnam]

Yetloh said:

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[blockquote]AndyM said:

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I really wanted to like mine but I never use it. As others have said, the wheels are too close to the front.

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My experience exactly.

The Eclipse type is good for western chisels and plane irons but hopeless for Japanese chisels. Who wants to mess around changing jaws, no matter how well made the jig is (LN).

For me, the best and most versatile jig currently available is the narrow Veritas Mk2 with the standard blade carrier for plane irons and skews, but you do need to make proper support and blade registration jigs (a different one for each blade carrier) which will mean you can abandon that horrible blade registration attachment which otherwise needs to go on and off for every blade and doesn't even work very well. Making the jigs takes a fair amount of time but once made you will have all the easy functionality you will ever need. I can provide details of the jigs if anyone wants them.

Jim

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[/blockquote]

I'd like to see what you are doing with the jig.