The best sharpener of hand tools I know is – hands down – Harrelson Stanley of JapaneseTools.com.
The last time I worked a woodworking show with Stanley we were in Ontario, Calif., a few years ago as he was preparing to launch the U.S. line of Shapton GlassStones. As he was showing off the stones he stopped for a moment and looked me in the eye.
“Do you think,” he asked, “if sharpening could ever become a hobby unto itself. Like golf? Where people sharpened merely for the pleasure of getting a perfect edge?”
Stanley was serious, so I paused and gave it some thought.
No, I said, I don’t think it could be a hobby for more than a few people. For me, sharpening is like changing the oil in my cars. It’s messy and time-consuming, but you must do it regularly or disaster will befall you eventually.
And besides, if sharpening alone were a hobby that would seriously downsize my job responsibilities (half of my time is showing people how to make their tools sharp; the other half is showing people how to make them dull). Dulling the tools is more fun than sharpening them.
So I’m not a sharpening fascist. I’m a good sharpener, but I don’t take more than five to 10 minutes to renew a micro-bevel (grinding a new primary bevel adds another 10 to 15 minutes to the process). But I firmly believe that a sharp iron is the second best way to reduce tear-out when handplaning a board.
This belief guides me when I sharpen my tools and regulates the attention I pay to each tool’s edge. Here is what my typical sharpening chores look like in my shop at work and home.
For me, sharpening begins at the end of a project.
With the piece of furniture complete and the deadline pressure off, I take a few hours to sharpen my tools. I always sharpen the iron of my jointer, smoothing and block planes. Then I move through any chisels that I used during the project. If I used them for more than a quick pare, I hone them as well. Then I move through the rest of the tool box. Any joinery planes (such as router, shoulder, fillister, plow and dado planes) and moulding planes that I used get sharpened. I’ll also take a look at my marking knives, jack plane, auger bits and marking gauges. If they’re dull, I’ll touch them up.
I do this at the end of the project so that when I start a new piece of furniture, everything is set up and ready to go. Anal-retentive? Perhaps. But as I build the next project I don’t sharpen my tools as I’m working unless one of two things happen: I damage a tool by dropping it or hitting a nail, or my smoothing plane leaves tear-out.
If the other tools give me tear-out, I can usually wait it out. But tear-out at the smoothing stage of a project is one of the most frustrating battles to fight. You can try a bunch of different strategies to eliminate the tear-out, but the first one should be to hone up your smoothing plane’s iron and try again.
About half the time, this break in the action fixes the problem. If it doesn’t help, it’s time to try strategy No. 3 (next week’s topic).
— Christopher Schwarz
I wish I had your discipline to sharpen all my tools at the end of a project. That’s great advice. If only "Discipline" came in bottles….
Chris,
These are all very good rules to follow and to make into a habit, but I’m in dire need of seeing strategy No. 3 now! I realize that I’ll have to wait but this mahogony is giving me fits even though I’m at the end of the project. I’m actually afraid of not being able to get to the point of resharpening and honing the tools that I’ve used on this chest so far.
I’m thinking that it might be time to bring out my secret weapon, my ace in the hole…my small smoother from Clark & Williams. I haven’t really tried it except on this project except on some smaller pieces of the chest, and it worked as advertised, but I didn’t think of using it on a large section. I guess a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, that is until strategy No. 3 is ready for public viewing.
Thank you,
Michael Rogen
I watched Harrelson in action a couple of times – most recently 2 years ago at the Woodworking Shows in Edison, NJ. I learned a lot about sharpening watching him in person. He is a terrific teacher, so if you have the chance to watch him and/or talk with him I highly recommend it.
I pride myself on having really sharp tools, but I’m with Chris on the subject of whether sharpening could be a hobby onto itself. To me, sharpening is a means to an end – a glistening finish or smooth endgrain. If you don’t cut or slice something, how do you know a tool is sharp? And if you perfectly sharpen a tool you never use, then why sharpen it in the first place?
Chris is far more efficient than I am – I don’t think of sharpening until I’m using a tool and it’s not working the way it should. I think I fuss most with my scrapers. I’ve got my handplane iron and chisel sharpening techinque and method down pretty well, so I just do it and don’t think about it. Scrapers though…I haven’t gotten it down to rote. When I do it right, it’s great. But about a quarter of the time I’ll come to the end of sharpening my card scraper and start over again. Maybe someday…
Thanks for the inspiration, Chris. Only a handful of my tools have actually been tuned and sharpened, and I ought to make it a priority to get all of them fully fettled. Sharpening is like classwork in college: its always there and you can always do more of it. Since I’m a relative beginner at sharpening, I often experience this awareness of a task undone as a weight on me. I know that one day I’ll need an unfettled tool, and my project will be put on hold for it. Since my sharpening chops are just developing, it that delay can be significant.
Maybe we can start a pool on what the No. 3
way will be to reduce tear out. Lets see
1. Use good wood
2. Use sharp tools
3. Buy a new tool. This will really increase the membership
in WAS
Steve 🙂
Steve,
No, I have promised all the wives that I would lay off the tool recommendations for the Christmas season. And they have promised me cookies in exchange.
Chris