Today I taught my 8-year-old to sharpen. It took five minutes.
Instead of teaching her about abrasives and honing angles and all the other theory my head is filled with, I took a hands-off approach to this important hand skill.
I showed her how to secure the blade in a honing guide. I showed her the three waterstones (and the sheer delight of squirting water from the plant sprayer into your mouth. Then Katy decided to use the plant sprayer to pretend she was a boy… a story for another blog and perhaps Katy’s prom night.)
Then I gave her these instructions for sharpening: “Rub it back and forth until it is as shiny as you can get it. Then clean it and go to the next stone.”
I walked away and let her give it a whirl. In less than 10 minutes she showed me her edge. I could see myself in it. (In more ways than one, I suppose). Then I showed her how to back off the iron on the polishing stone.
We oiled the blade together and reassembled the block plane. Then she took the plane to work on pine and pulled up the same wispy shavings she always does. She didn’t have some sort of Zen-like koan-solving moment. The plane just worked like it should work. And sharpening it was no big deal.
Sometimes I think our heads are apt to stop our hands. We read too much, think too much and worry. Sometimes I think the best way to learn a task is to do it without reading anything about it. (Boy this sounds like a dumb argument from a magazine editor.) Just do the task – fail if you need to – but perform the task from beginning to end.
Then read like crazy to understand why the tools worked the way they did.
Last year we did a little experiment with a new employee, Drew Depenning. I told Senior Editor Glen Huey to have Drew cut dovetails during his first week at work. Drew had never cut a single joint by hand. He didn’t know to be afraid. So he cut his dovetails and they came out fine.
With that out of the way, Drew could get on with learning all the ins and outs of the craft.
This works great in woodworking. Probably not so well at a nuclear reactor.
— Christopher Schwarz
LOL… kudos for planning an embarrassing moment for your daughter ten years in advance.
The watch is on to see how soon Katy alters her sharpening technique slightly and then posts on your blog to inform you that you are doing it all wrong.
I’m fully conditioned in the art of "analysis paralysis". It is a hard thing to un-learn, but as you note here, in some instances it’s the way to go to avoid letting your mind get in the way of learning by doing. So, I think I’m going to focus on not over-thinking things so much… uhhh, well maybe I will… I need to give the idea some more thought before acting so rash.
And making a new employee hand-cut his first set of dovetails the first week on the job is, well, cruel. You are a tyrant sir! Did you film it? This is what youtube is for.
-Charles
Interesting article, and I agree with what you said. Doing is the best way to learn and it can be surprising what people can make or do with little or no tuition.
I have found over the years of teaching that some people instinctively get it and a few need more guidance and theoretical explanations. It is often necessary to know the theory before doing, if not you will probably get something to function, but more often than not it will have faults that shorten its life or functionality.
What if you let your daughter just set up the honing guide and blade on her own, if she did not know any theory then she may have set the blade in the wrong place, used the wrong stones and even pressed down on one side of the blade more than the other.
I learnt my craft by doing, and being poor very rarely went on courses, it is only in the last few years that I have acquired lots of books and of coarse the internet is a great resources. Because I had no theory of sharpening when I started, sometimes my blade came out blunter! It took me a long time, years, to figure out why. If I had some basic theory then I would have not made so many mistakes and would have learnt faster.
It is good to learn from our mistakes, but a few hints, tips and theory can go a very long way to doing a better job quicker.
Sean
You’re a journalist, so aren’t you supposed to overthink?
This way, we (your readers) don’t have to.
–dave
>Sometimes I think our heads are apt to stop our hands.
Amen brother. I first read the quote below when learning to brew beer, refer to it often while woodworking.
"Relax Don’t Worry, Have a Home Brew" -Charlie Papazian