Had to Keep Myself From Laughing

[Jim Koepke]

While picking through tools at one of my regular stops for rust hunting another gentleman struck up a conversation. We discussed our woodworking adventures. When told of my work being mostly with hand tools he expressed his inability to get planes to work for him. He said he couldn't get them to leave a smooth surface. My comment was, "sharp fixes most problems." He said he sharpened the blades on his grinder, then asked if he needs to hone them after that.

My reply was yes and then told him about how most of the time my blades will shave hair cleanly.

For another interesting take on sharpening:

https://blog.lostartpress.com/2018/01/16/a-lesson-in-sharpening/

jtk

[David Eisenhauer]

Good one Jim. "Yeah, just a wee more than the grinder ye daft bluddy laddie..............".

[Frederick Skelly]

Love it Jim!

[Phil Mueller]

I remember in my teens an old grinder set up in my Dad’s shed. Pretty sure that was what he used to “sharpen” up the #3 I now have in his memory. Cleaning out some of his stuff, I never ran into any stones. Highly likely he never had any.

Back before internet, or without someone to tell or show you how it’s done, a grinder would seem to be the right appliance to get a plane working. Never recall seeing my Dad use that plane. From the looks of it when I took it from his shed years later, it appears it was just a fancy paint scraper. Probably used once or twice to tweak a door or who knows what. I can’t really fault him for poor sharpening. I suppose hundreds of DIYers bought hundreds of hardward store planes and just put em to work. And like many of us, I’m darn sure he never read whatever instructions there were that came with it...if any.

Does make me smile, though. Wish I knew then what I know now.

[Dave Parkis]

That's as bad as the guy that bought a plane from me and brought it back a few months later because it didn't work anymore. When I asked him what he was using to sharpen it, he looked at me and said " what do you mean? It was sharp when you sold it to me". Seriously.

[Normand Leblanc]

A few years ago I bought an estate and I ended up with 70-80 planes. None of the blades were properly honed and not a single back was flatten. Those planes had been bought by a man collecting woodworking tools over a period of ~30 years. Same can be said about 150 chisels of all kind but including ~60-70 expensive EA Berg.

It seems that for a long period of time nobody knew how to properly sharpen...

[Jim Koepke]

A few years ago I bought an estate and I ended up with 70-80 planes. None of the blades were properly honed and not a single back was flatten. Those planes had been bought by a man collecting woodworking tools over a period of ~30 years. Same can be said about 150 chisels of all kind but including ~60-70 expensive EA Berg.

It seems that for a long period of time nobody knew how to properly sharpen...

Changing methods of manufacturing, labor and a couple of world wars disrupted the usual father son or apprenticeship training that taught generations before.

There were a lot of skills and abilities lost to those disruptions besides sharpening techniques.

jtk

[Peter Christensen]

My father apprenticed in Denmark to a wagon maker in the mid 30's, so had a good hand tool background. I saw him one day sitting on the concrete walk at the bottom of the stairs. He had a pail of water and a rock he found beside the driveway and was rubbing it on the sidewalk. He was making a slip stone to sharpen his tools with. It just shows that we can get carried away with getting perfect tools instead of getting on with the work. His edges wouldn't pass muster with many here but the end results spoke for themselves.

[Jim Koepke]

My father apprenticed in Denmark to a wagon maker in the mid 30's, so had a good hand tool background. I saw him one day sitting on the concrete walk at the bottom of the stairs. He had a pail of water and a rock he found beside the driveway and was rubbing it on the sidewalk. He was making a slip stone to sharpen his tools with. It just shows that we can get carried away with getting perfect tools instead of getting on with the work. His edges wouldn't pass muster with many here but the end results spoke for themselves.

Likewise my father told me just about any hard rock could be used to hone a blade. Through life experience my learned opinion is there are some rocks that are much better than others at the task.

jtk

[Jerry Olexa]

Ignorance is bliss....He just did not know...

[Brian Holcombe]

Most modern tool edges are ground on a machine, so I can understand why many are confused by the need to hone. The reverse is likely troubling as well, I ground a tool for a lathe yesterday’s and found myself polishing the back and could not help but polish the burr off.

[Jim Koepke]

Most modern tool edges are ground on a machine, so I can understand why many are confused by the need to hone.

Most of those machines cost more than many of us make in a year. It is possible to get a fine edge with the proper wheels or abrasives on a home system, but that isn't what most folks have in their garage.

This isn't the first person of my acquaintance who thought they could get an edge sharp with a bench grinder and a course abrasive wheel. From the looks of many plane irons and chisels that came my way there are more who feel a bench grinder is all that is needed to sharpen a blade. Very few of my second hand tools came to me looking like they had seen anything finer than a carborundum wheel on a bench grinder.

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

That’s certaibly true Jim, but you see my point I assume? My suspicion is that people see those edges commonly enough that they do not think about honing like we do but instead expect that a ground edge is acceptable. I had an interest in knives before woodworking tools so I feel I had just naturally thought it best to hone a woodworking tool, if not for that I may have thought to sharpen them the way we did tools in the machine shop.

Outside of my woodworking friends I can’t recall ever having seen a properly sharpened tool in the wild.

[Jim Koepke]

My suspicion is that people see those edges commonly enough that they do not think about honing like we do but instead expect that a ground edge is acceptable.
[edit]
Outside of my woodworking friends I can’t recall ever having seen a properly sharpened tool in the wild.

Maybe folks think this is how they should be sharpened and that they do a poor job so they sell them at a yard sale.

jtk

[Patrick Chase]

Maybe folks think this is how they should be sharpened and that they do a poor job so they sell them at a yard sale.

jtk

There's an interesting bit of game theory at work here.

By spreading he Gospel of Sharpening you may help people make use of the tools they already own, and in so doing reduce the supply of cheap tools for your own rust hunting.

It's probably OK though, because there's so much noise in the sharpening threads here that the chances of anybody learning something they don't already know seem quite remote. It's like a form of spontaneously arising steganography (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography).

[James Waldron]

There's an interesting bit of game theory at work here.

By spreading he Gospel of Sharpening you may help people make use of the tools they already own, and in so doing reduce the supply of cheap tools for your own rust hunting.

It's probably OK though, because there's so much noise in the sharpening threads here that the chances of anybody learning something they don't already know seem quite remote. It's like a form of spontaneously arising steganography (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography).

So THAT'S what you've been up to in all those threads! :rolleyes:

[Matt Lau]

What's a grinder?

[steven c newman]

Something like this?
377511

[Bob Glenn]

I was out at the son's house in DC and he needed something planed down. He had an old plane and of course it was pretty dull, and he didn't have any sharpening equipment, so I just made do with what he had available, which was a concrete block, the sidewalk and some sand paper. It took a little doing, however, I was able to get the plane sharp enough to get the job done.

Afterwards, I took the plane back to Indiana and put a good edge on it for him and shipped it back. Just hope he gets around to using it in the future. Bob

[Daniel O'Connell]

I was out at the son's house in DC and he needed something planed down. He had an old plane and of course it was pretty dull, and he didn't have any sharpening equipment, so I just made do with what he had available, which was a concrete block, the sidewalk and some sand paper. It took a little doing, however, I was able to get the plane sharp enough to get the job done.

Afterwards, I took the plane back to Indiana and put a good edge on it for him and shipped it back. Just hope he gets around to using it in the future. Bob

Stories like this are tempting me to buying a couple decent cheaper stones and keeping them in the car just in case....

[Jim Koepke]

Stories like this are tempting me to buying a couple decent cheaper stones and keeping them in the car just in case....

Small used containers for shampoo or other products when emptied make good containers for a supply of mineral oil. Just be sure to label them well.

jtk

[David Bassett]

Stories like this are tempting me to buying a couple decent cheaper stones and keeping them in the car just in case....

I follow a kitchen knife forum which was discussing how to handle dull AirBnB knives while on vacation. Other than bringing your own knife, carrying a sand paper selection (for "scary sharp") and sharpening on the road was the preferred solution. (The later is reported to be TSA carry-on compatible.)

[Tony Leonard]

My dad was never a "woodworker." He had a few chisels and a couple of planes. A few years back, he sent me a few chisels to sharpen along with a plane blade. They were nice old Stanleys but they were in bad shape - he bought them new before I was born and they survived him and three sons. Anyway, I spent quite a bit of time flattening and sharpening. Now, I'm not like a lot of folks - I can't quote microns and I only own one set of stones (gasp!), but I did my version of sharp anyway. I wrapped them up carefully and shipped them back. He appreciated the effort but his comment was that they were too sharp and therefore dangerous! Oh well.

[Halgeir Wold]

Hm.. somestrange and entertaining stories, here :) - but wasn't woodworking a part of general education in the 50s and 60s, aslo in the US? Don't people cook, and what about kitchen knives? There's few things more frustrating than dull knives when working in the kitchen.....

[Jim Koepke]

Hm.. somestrange and entertaining stories, here :) - but wasn't woodworking a part of general education in the 50s and 60s, aslo in the US? Don't people cook, and what about kitchen knives? There's few things more frustrating than dull knives when working in the kitchen.....

There was "general education" for the trades and a different path for the "college bound." My only shop class was in 8th grade General Shop. We didn't learn to sharpen in that class.

Many of the so called "smarter" students didn't learn about some of the basics of living since they were too busy with trig, calculus and spacial geometry.

One of my former co-workes often said he couldn't sharpen to save his life. My feeling was that his belief was so deeply rooted that he likely couldn't be taught to sharpen.

He was the poster boy for Henry Ford's comment, "whether you believe you can or that you can't, you are probably right."


He appreciated the effort but his comment was that they were too sharp and therefore dangerous! Oh well.

One time the most used kitchen knives were taken out to my shop for a sharpening session. My wife's first comment after using one was that they were too sharp. She later said that she needs a warning after the knives were sharpened.

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

My dad was never a "woodworker." He had a few chisels and a couple of planes. A few years back, he sent me a few chisels to sharpen along with a plane blade. They were nice old Stanleys but they were in bad shape - he bought them new before I was born and they survived him and three sons. Anyway, I spent quite a bit of time flattening and sharpening. Now, I'm not like a lot of folks - I can't quote microns and I only own one set of stones (gasp!), but I did my version of sharp anyway. I wrapped them up carefully and shipped them back. He appreciated the effort but his comment was that they were too sharp and therefore dangerous! Oh well.

That's quite a compliment :D Can't make a tool too sharp, but I will attest to 'too sharp' kitchen knives, I have a sushi knife that is a thirsty one...bit me a time or two. I do actually like them exceedingly sharp, but my wife does not.

[David Eisenhauer]

I wonder, once you get past the "huntin' and fishin'" crowd, how many younger folks even carry or use a knife outside of the kitchen and have any clue whatsoever about sharpening same? I can imagine that a truly sharp tool or knife would be somewhat intimidating to some folks when first put to use. I do agree, however, that a chisel can be too sharp for paint can opening.

[Jim Koepke]

I do agree, however, that a chisel can be too sharp for paint can opening.

Blasphemy!

jtk

[Bruce Haugen]

That's quite a compliment :D Can't make a tool too sharp, but I will attest to 'too sharp' kitchen knives, I have a sushi knife that is a thirsty one...bit me a time or two. I do actually like them exceedingly sharp, but my wife does not.

I wonder how well sushi could be made without an exceedingly sharp knife?

[Stew Denton]

Hi All,

Jim's comment on a tool getting dull, and then it ends up in a garage sale is extremely similar to what a friend told me. He said that he has bought most of his chisels at garage sales. He said exactly the same idea that Jim did, he said that they used them until they were too dull to do the job, and then sold them at a garage sale. The chisels were virtually new, just dull.

Apparently folks either don't know how to sharpen, think that they don't have the tools (a grinder) and the tool is more expensive than just buying another chisel, or it doesn't even dawn on them to try sharpening, I don't know.

Of the used chisels I have bought over the years, maybe only one or maybe two showed any signs of proper sharpening techniques. Most showed signs of a coarse grinder if sharpened, and some looked like they had never seen any sharpening effort at all. Almost all were duller than picks. However, most of these chisels were Stanley 60s, likely made in the 60s or 70s.

The plane irons were different, and some had the backs flattened nicely, not most, but at least a few, and also had the iron cambered beautifully. Here again though, the bench planes I have bought have all been 80 or more years old. Back then some folks knew about "sharp." One plane, out of all of them, was actually pretty sharp, and it was a block plane. My guess is that the person who used those planes after inheriting them from grandpa did not have a clue about sharpening, and used them just enough to get them dull.

Halgeir, like Jim mentioned, classes like General Shop and Wood Shop (formerly called "manual training" or similar names before I was in high school in the late 60s) were elective classes. I went to school in a small school in Western Kansas where the primary activity was farming and ranching, and the school was too small for specialized classes like Machine Shop. A few of the boys took shop classes, kids wanting to be farmers generally took General Shop where they learned welding and mechanics, and a few of us took Wood Shop.

That said, in the Wood Shop class I took there was virtually no instruction in sharpening, almost everything was with power tools, and mostly very large power tools. There was virtually no work done with hand tools, although a friend took a wood Shop class in a similarly sized school in the same part of the state, and they used hand tools a lot. It was really too bad, as few from that class could afford the really big woodworking stuff, but almost all of us could have afforded a Stanley Bailey #5, chisels, two or three handsaws, etc., IF we knew how to use them and IF we knew what could be produced using them.

Just my two bits.

Regards,

Stew

[Brian Holcombe]

I wonder how well sushi could be made without an exceedingly sharp knife?

I’m a terrible sushi chef so I can’t say that having a knife that can cut a hanging hair is a help, but it cuts fish without disturbing the slice or the remainder.

Also I’ve been to some wonderful places and the knives are usually kept in a mediocre fashion.

[Philipp Jaindl]

Very interessting Thread,

In terms of Knives its probably partly down to people just dont knowing what a properly sharp Knife feels like and asuming their dull one is still sharpish. And my Generation, <30, barely anyone carries a Knife, i have gotten odd looks and the question "why do you carry a knife" more then once, to me its just a handy Tool to have around.

In the case of Tools in the Proffessional sector, Handtools are rarely used apart from chisels, and Machine tools and Blades get sent off to proffessional sharpeners more often then not and Box cutters have replacement blades. To one of my masters its more efficient to just put a replacement blade in instead of spending 1 to 5 minutes on sharpening, i still have the same blade in my Box cutter as when i bought it 4 years ago.

I would say that there is definetly a thing as too sharp for tools, its about hitting the sweetspot between sharpness and edge retention in my book, a 17° edge on a chisels works great untill you hit hardwood :D

Just depends on what value one places on sharpness i suppose.

[Patrick Chase]

I would say that there is definetly a thing as too sharp for tools, its about hitting the sweetspot between sharpness and edge retention in my book, a 17° edge on a chisels works great untill you hit hardwood :D

I think you're confusing "sharpness" with cutting angle. Sharpness is generally taken to refer to the degree to which the very tip of the edge is rounded or otherwise deformed
. You can have a "sharp" 60 degree edge just as you can have a "dull" 17 degree one.

Other than things not meant to cut (for example the parts of chisel side edges that we sometimes hold, or the tips and tails of skis) I'm not aware of cases where there is such a thing as "too sharp". That's true even for edge durability, as dullness tends to create stresses (due to higher cutting forces) that beget further dulling and shorten edge life.

There are obviously plenty of cases where a cutting angle may be too low. Try putting anything less than, say, 40 degrees on cemented carbide (and more than that for most applications) and see how long the edge lasts without chipping.


In the real world there is no such thing as two faces that meet in a perfect line. There is always some rounding or other deviation at the very tip, it's simply a matter of scale. What most folks would call a "sharp" edge is one in which that deviation is on the order of a micron.

[Mike Henderson]

The plane irons were different, and some had the backs flattened nicely, not most, but at least a few, and also had the iron cambered beautifully. Here again though, the bench planes I have bought have all been 80 or more years old. Back then some folks knew about "sharp." One plane, out of all of them, was actually pretty sharp, and it was a block plane. My guess is that the person who used those planes after inheriting them from grandpa did not have a clue about sharpening, and used them just enough to get them dull.

Just my two bits.

Regards,

Stew

My experience with purchasing antique bench planes and block planes (a fair number and mostly Stanley Bailey type 11, but a few Keen Kutter and V&B) is that none of then had the back of the iron flattened. The only antique plane I ever purchased with the back of the iron flattened was from another (current) woodworker.

I don't think many of our ancestors flattened the back of the irons.

Mike

[And those plane irons took a lot of work to get the back flat.]

[Jim Koepke]

To one of my masters its more efficient to just put a replacement blade in instead of spending 1 to 5 minutes on sharpening, i still have the same blade in my Box cutter as when i bought it 4 years ago.

My box cutter blade is sharpened in place faster than it can be replaced.


Just depends on what value one places on sharpness i suppose.

To me as long as my kitchen knives can slice through a ripe tomato without crushing it, it is sharp enough.

In the shop my chisels, gouges and plane blades need to be able to cleanly pare end grain or across grain as the case may be.

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

My experience with purchasing antique bench planes and block planes (a fair number and mostly Stanley Bailey type 11, but a few Keen Kutter and V&B) is that none of then had the back of the iron flattened. The only antique plane I ever purchased with the back of the iron flattened was from another woodworker.

I don't think many of our ancestors flattened the back of the irons.

Mike

[And those plane irons took a lot of work to get the back flat.]

Mike, that may well be true in many cases that the burr was really just swiped off.

However, unless the tool literally left the craftsman's hands and went completely untouched until you took apart then it's hard to draw an honest conclusion. That may happen in some cases, but I assume often enough that someone has "tuned" it up in the interim.

[Mike Henderson]

Mike, that may well be true in many cases that the burr was really just swiped off.

However, unless the tool literally left the craftsman's hands and went completely untouched until you took apart then it's hard to draw an honest conclusion. That may happen in some cases, but I assume often enough that someone has "tuned" it up in the interim.

I really doubt if the iron warped as much as some (most) of those irons were out of flat just because they were sitting around unused in someone's tool box or shop. I have planes that I haven't used in several years and when I take the plane out and touch up the iron, the back is still flat.

No, my belief is that many (maybe even most) of our woodworking ancestors did not flatten the back of their plane irons when sharpening.

Mike

[Patrick Chase]

I really doubt if the iron warped as much as some (most) of those irons were out of flat just because they were sitting around unused in someone's tool box or shop. I have planes that I haven't used in several years and when I take the plane out and touch up the iron, the back is still flat.

No, my belief is that many (maybe even most) of our woodworking ancestors did not flatten the back of their plane irons when sharpening.

My belief is that there are an awful lot of tools floating around that never saw the hands of a serious woodworker. This is particularly true from the Industrial Revolution onward, when the cost became low enough to enable non-professionals to own them. You can't judge anything about sharpening "best practices" from old tools unless you can somehow establish that they were last owned and used by a skilled woodworker.

Among other things, cap irons don't work with irons that are warped side-to-side. If you see an iron that isn't flat along that axis then you know immediately that it's owner wasn't terribly competent.

[Mike Henderson]

My belief is that there are an awful lot of tools floating around that never saw the hands of a serious woodworker. This is particularly true from the Industrial Revolution onward, when the cost became low enough to enable non-professionals to own them. You can't judge anything about sharpening "best practices" from old tools unless you can somehow establish that they were last owned and used by a skilled woodworker.

Among other things, cap irons don't work with irons that are warped side-to-side. If you see an iron that isn't flat along that axis then you know immediately that it's owner wasn't terribly competent.

That's certainly been my experience.

Mike

[Brian Holcombe]

I really doubt if the iron warped as much as some (most) of those irons were out of flat just because they were sitting around unused in someone's tool box or shop. I have planes that I haven't used in several years and when I take the plane out and touch up the iron, the back is still flat.

No, my belief is that many (maybe even most) of our woodworking ancestors did not flatten the back of their plane irons when sharpening.

Mike

Without historic evidence into who used the tools and when they were put out of use, I feel it is hard to gain insight to period practice from them. They may have never been used in the time period, they have been poorly attended to by someone, who knows. It's much different than if we were to know where they came from and could inspect them closely.

If it came from a craftsman's workshop akin to Warren Mickley's and we were able to take it as it were and inspect every element we would gain a lot of insight into process. Taking something that has 100+ years of unknown custody and attempting to gain insight into period practice is going to be near useless.

I have a plane sitting on my shelf that was an ancestors, he may have used it anytime between the years of 1865-1925. My grandfather received it sometime in his adult life and passed it onto my father a few years ago who then immediately gave it to me figuring I had more use for it than he did. It was in a shambles when I received it, but it was obviously kept after during the time when it was in use. I assume this because it has a patch in the area of the mouth (to close it) that was done by someone who knew what they were doing. I can't gain much insight beyond that because it has been nearly 100 years since the original owner put it to use.

[Mel Fulks]

Most people didn't have "hobbies" until after WW2. Lots of the planes were used only by a handyman or "carpenter" for jobs like removing rocks,grit,and paint from the bottom of a dragging screen door.