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Sharpening Tools, Part 5

A few odd points to clear up some common misunderstanding on tools and sharpness.

The first point is, that unless you are changing the actual angle of the blade to make it a lower degree angle, you are more specifically making the blade keen.

Making a blade keen does not make a weaker [...]

Sharpening Tools, Part 4

Dubbing.

We are not perfect in our methods.

An  ideal edge might be perfectly keen.  Sadly we will rock a bit as we sharpen.  at the very end we tend to rock just a smidgeon, and cause a fine dub.

Now we have a bit of an issue.

When we rock it [...]

Sharpening Tools, Part 3

The Gritty Details

Here is a table of the relative grit sizes of the different standards used.  CAMI is the American Standard, and for a long time is was the main standard.  The European standard, FEPA, is more precise, and so FEPA graded sandpaper tends to work faster than CAMI.  JIS is used for [...]

Sharpening Tools, Part 2

My method of sharpening is to make two extremely flat surfaces that intersect.  This intersection is the edge.

To make a flat surface flat the first time, I grind it on a flat surface with an abraisve powder.   The flat surface I use is a slab of annealed O1 tool steel.  The Japanese would [...]

Sharpening Tools, Part 1

Sharpening is the key issue for using hand tools for wood work. If you cannot sharpen, then hand tools will not perform for you. Sharpening is a simple task. It is pretty easy to get an extraordinarily sharp blade. It does not take long to sharpen a tool, and it does not require years [...]