I’m pretty certain that I have “re-invented the wheel” with this little jig; but never having seen a commercial honing guide that would allow me to properly sharpen the blades of small violin planes (like the Ibex) or narrow chisels .
The “feel for the angle and drag” method was time consuming and left me with boogered up blades more often than I care to admit,
This week I reached that point where I no longer had a sharp mini-plane left in the tool drawer, which meant that it was once again time to break down, pull out the water stones and sharpen everything.
This was a prospect that filled me with dread, and sent me on another fruitless search of the internet for a mini plane honing guide.
My solution to keeping the angle correct and the orientaion perendicular was to cut a wedge out of 3/4″ thick plastic and double face tape (painters tape and CA glue also works) the blade to the wedge. I have not tried this method with hardwood, but I assume that a hardwood wedge would probably wook fine with Oil Stones, since I use water stones I opted for plastic, which seems to glide over the slurry created in the sharpening process with litte effect.
I used a protactor to draw a 30 degree angle on the block, took it to the band saw and cut close to the line then sanded it to the line on my disk sander.
By aligning the blade edge to the side of the block and the beveled edge to a flat surface like a sheet of glass, or some other know flat surface, while adhering everything remains in perfect alignment.
This arrangement allows me to flatten the back of the plane blades as well as the bevel as I am working up through the various grits.
No more frustration, no more irregular angles or scewed bevels.