Happiness is a Sharp Tool
Some interest was shown at the January 2021 meeting on tool sharpening. With the current pandemic it is not practical to hold a tool sharpening workshop, and the long time members of SAWS would lynch me if I devoted a whole meeting (or even part of a meeting for that matter) to sharpening, so until we can hold a workshop here are some thoughts on tool sharpening, as well as some links to some helpful YouTube videos on how to sharpen your tools. Please note that the comments below and in the articles are only the opinions of the presenters. There are not bibles or hard and fast rules. When it comes to sharpening it is up to each woodworker to develop their own preferences and techniques, and for them to determine what is “sharp enough” and what is not.
The Wood Doesn’t Care
First thing to remember is: The Wood Doesn’t Care if
Your tool is cryogenically hardened steel, tool steel, carbide, or even if it is steel
If you have a convex bevel, a concave bevel, or a flat bevel
If you sharpened to 600 grit, 3,600 grit, 6,000 grit, 12,000 grit, or 72,,000 grit
if you have a secondary bevel or only a primary bevel
What angle your bevel is
The only thing the wood cares about is if the tool is sharp enough to cut it.
How Sharp is Sharp Enough?
I don’t mean to be flippant, but a tool is sharp enough when it gets the job done. An example;
When I sharpen my turning tools, I use a 600 grit CBN grinding wheel. This give me a sharp enough edge that I can achieve a clean smooth cut, and the tool retains the edge long enough that I am not returning to re-sharpen the tool every few minutes. When I sharpen my chisels I go to 3,600 grit using a Work Sharp machine. For my hand planes I sharpen to 8,000 grit using water stones. I find that these levels of sharpness are sufficient for my needs. Your needs and the type of woodworking that you do may be different than mine, as well as the types of wood you are working with. For you, hand planes may need to be sharpened to 12,000 grit, but that is your choice and needs. For what I do, to take my turning tools and sharpen them to 12,000 grit would be a waste of my time (I don’t enjoy sharpening that much).
One thing to keep in mind however is that the sharper a tool is, the longer it will stay sharp (within reason of course). I had a hard time understanding this until is was explained to me as follows. Think of a toothpick (one of the flat sided ones, not a round one). If you were asked to break a single toothpick you could do so with ease. Now take a number of toothpicks in a row one layer deep. Still relatively easy to break. Now take 5 layers of toothpicks and arrange them in a V. Try breaking the middle toothpick now - quite a bit harder as it is supported by the toothpicks on each side, and there is only a little bit of the toothpick sticking up to grab onto and break. Now think of the cutting edge of of your tool at the microscopic level. It would not be completely smooth, but would be somewhat jagged with little points and valleys. Think of the points as the tips of those toothpicks. The sharper the tool, the smaller those points are and the closer together they are. When using the tool, those points are going to what to break off, but the smaller they are and the tighter the spacing between them, the harder it is for those points to break. That is why a sharper tool will stay sharper longer.
How to Sharpen
Sharpening Shop in Morocco
There are many ways to sharpen a tool. Sharpening has been going on for millenniums. It is in a relatively short period of time that we have powered sharpening systems, diamond coated plates, rods and wheels. Water and oil stones have been around for centuries. The picture introducing this posting is of a sharpening shop in the medina in Fez, Morocco. The picture above taken in January, 2020, and the primary tool used to sharpen all items that are brought to that shop is that big stone wheel. It is leg powered. A bicycle like pedal is on the back of the wheel and you can see the shop keeper’s foot on the pedal). After grinding he spends a very small amount of time using a leather strop. I have no idea what grit that wheel was, but believe me, the tools and knives were super sharp when he was done. The point is that sharpening has been around for a very long time, and getting tools super sharp has been happening all that time. Sure, the newer technology may help you sharpen quicker, but you can still get your tools very sharp using the older methods if done properly.
The following links and methods are not a recommendation, and are presented for informational purposes only.
Deneb Puchalski of Lie-Nielsen has two videos on sharpening plane irons using water stones and an inexpensive honing guide. The videos go over lapping the back of a blade, micro bevels, flattening and care of your stones, and the difference between sharpening the plane iron and a chisel. Part 1: Honing the Micro Bevel and Part 2: Flattening stones
I mentioned before, that I use a Work Sharp sharpening system for my chisels. I find it does a good job up to about a 1 1/4” side chisel. After 1 1/4” the chisel is more like a small plane, so I use water stones for anything larger than 1 1/4”. Various vendors sell the Work Sharp WS3000 (around $330). The Work Sharp web site is https://www.worksharptools.com/home/woodworking/ and their youTube demo video is at Work Sharp 3000 Sharpener: Demo - YouTube
There are many other powered sharpening systems out there. A quick google search will give you thousands of hits.
Just getting started with sharpening and want a more traditional method with stones? Rob Cosman has a video on how to sharpen hand plane blades (on a budget), and a more through sharpening video using multiple stones. Both of these videos show how to sharpen freehand without jigs.
Vic Tesolin of Lee Valley has a number of sharpening videos. This video shows the Veritas MK II Honing Guide, and this video shows honing using the same jig and Veritas honing plates with diamond paste.
Jimmy Clewes (world renown woodturner) and James Barry of Sharpening Solutions did a series of videos on sharpening freehand with diamond stones. In the videos they talk about many things, including how sharp is sharp enough. Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 These videos are of Jimmy and James in Jimmy’s shop sitting on some stools talking about sharpening, and James demonstrating now to sharpen. Jimmy’s wife played camera woman. The videos are very low key and somewhat amateurish, but do give a lot of good information. While aimed primarily at the woodturner, the principles of sharpening still apply and can be used to sharpen any wood cutting tool.
As mentioned earlier a search on google or YouTube will bring thousands of results. I’m sure you will quickly find a method that works for you and will allow you keep your tools sharp - the only thing the wood cares about.