Honing This Diamond Awl

[russellcook]

Hi everyone,

I have this diamond awl made by a Japanese company called "Elle". It worked well for making my turnshoes, and now I'm interested in finding out how I could hone it.

I watched this video on youtube:

but the shape of the blade seems different from my one. On my awl you can see that the blade tapers abruptly to a point at the tip.

My idea is to try lightly "stabbing" the tip into a whetstone, alternating the 4 faces of the blade, trying to maintain the angle of the original grind.

Then, stropping it on either plain leather, or leather with a honing compound.

Any suggestions would be great :-)

[simontuntelder]

From experience you don't have to change the appearance of the blade. If you just hone/polish it, it's more than usable as is. Very fine grit and a stabbing motion on all sides will help the awl's performance.

If you want a pointier tip, buy a secondary awl would be my suggestion.

Some people even cut off to the tip of the regular, more pointy awls, which will give a shape like the Japanese one you have.

And the company is called Kyoshin Elle.

Edited February 7, 2015 by simontuntelder

[Pablo27]

Nigel Armitage (a member of this site) has a great howto video on sharpening awl blades on his Youtube channel.

Paul

[russellcook]

Simon, thanks for the advice and extra information. I have a very fine translucent Arkansas stone, was thinking of using that and then stropping on some plain leather.

Paul, thanks for the suggestion, I've watched the Nigel Armitage awl sharpening video, but my diamond awl is ground quite differently to his one (perhaps because it's a Japanese manufacturer?) and so his method is unfortunately not applicable.

As a general point, the Kyoshin Elle diamond awl came lovely and sharp and ready to use from the box.

[Tramps Leatherworking]

I polish my awls starting with 1200 grit wet/dry sandpaper, and then finish them with HAPPICH simichrome metal polish, that is great stuff for polishing metal to a mirror finish.