We previously covered sharpening (columns 7 & 10). Here is a device suggested by a WASP owner that improves the process. This method gives easier control of the grinding and honing angles when sharpening chisels and plane blades, and does not require a honing guide.

First a quick recap - we saw back in column 10 that the first step is to prepare the back of the blade. This is still just as important as grinding and honing the bevel. It must be perfectly flat, no scratches, and highly polished. Refer back to column 10 to see how to make the setup shown here.
In the previous cloumn we used a honing guide to get the correct angle - as shown here

Here is the new setup you can add to the platform we discussed back in column 10. The extra piece of steel angle shown here is mounted on another piece of wood to get the working area up to where the belt is running - the thickness of this will depend on the width of your belt and where the belt happens to be tracking.

Underside view of the mounting block to show how the bolt for the wing-nut is housed before attaching the block to the base.

This is a method for setting the angle. Make some templates of your commonly used angles from sheet-metal or plywood.

Here it is in use. Note how we are referencing off the back of the blade rather than the front so there will be no variation in angle no matter how thick the blade is. This is an advantage compared to using a bench grinder.