Still Learning.....

[Joey Chavez]

I'm still new to the hand tool world and have used my planes enough now to go through a few of sharpenings but the last time or two I've sharpened I was disappointed. I didn't understand, I hadn't done anything different than what I had done before and had some really sharp blades in the beginning. I traced back to all the research I had done on sharpening and realized the one thing I had yet to do since buying my sharpening tools was flatten the waterstones. I had thought about it several times but kept putting it off. I had bought the Naniwa Superstones partly because they require less maintenance so when the thought of flattening them crossed my mind I figured, oh well they're probably fine. So Sunday morning I drew a grid across the top and started flattening against a diamond stone. They were far from flat, it took me a while but got all the stones flat and started working on a blade. Wow, problem solved, there was the glassy smooth surface I had been missing. Instead of getting back to my project I spent all morning sharpening nearly all my blades. I felt like I had brand new tools again! Nothing wrong with the Naniwa stones, they are excellent, the user just needed to realize they need basic maintenance like all the other tools do.

So a tip to any others like me that are new in the hand tool world, keep those stones flat!

I had also bought the set of LV carcass saws to experiment with handsawing a while back. I haven't been sure if I wanted to get real heavy into handsawing but wanted to know enough to cut a couple pieces using the bench hook I made, without having to roll out the table saw. Even after my confidence level rose after fixing the sharpening issue I had a tenon to cut but still chickened out and used a bandsaw to cut the cheeks, I didn't want to mess up the piece. Disappointed I backed out of it I was determined to hand cut the shoulder. Using what I had learned from watching and reading what Roy Underhill and Christopher Schwarz teach about sawing, I cut that shoulder. It came out dead square, I couldn't believe it, I must have checked it 10 times. It took one swipe with a bad block plane and mildly sharpened blade to get me hooked on hand planes, I think that one shoulder cut may have started a hand saw fever. I can't wait to get practicing.

[Jim Neeley]

Drawing from a downhill skiing phrase..

Welcome to the "double black diamonds" on that slippery slope, Joey... :-)

[Jim Koepke]

They were far from flat, it took me a while but got all the stones flat and started working on a blade. Wow, problem solved, there was the glassy smooth surface I had been missing.

Maybe old timers didn't flatten their stones and instead came up with a reasoning for cambered blades.

Just my 227596.

jtk

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Chris Schwarz recently linked to this piece on the carpentryarchive.org :

http://www.carpentryarchive.org/files/english_mechanic_1892.pdf

Seems like at least in 1892, folks realized that flat stone was a benefit.




"Is this your oilstone? Then I don't wonder that your plane-iron was in such bad form; - why, you've been sharpening turning gouges, narrow chisels, and I don't know what besides, on it, until it is quite hollow ; and now you think to sharpen a trying plane-iron on it. Why the best man in the world couldn't use that stone in its present condition for wide plane-irons and chisels. You must rub it down."

"No, don't do it on the side of the grind-stone ; there's a piece of sheet-iron plate there. Rub it on that, with sharp sand, or take a sheet of 1 1/2 emery cloth, and rub the stone down on that, and then we'll try and sharpen the plane-iron."



It's an interesting piece, written in an interesting tone. I haven't read a huge amount of older stuff, but this was the first one that I've seen that mentioned keeping the stones flat.