I think I finally found sharp.

[Mike Baker 2]

I have been working on a simple project, and cutting my first dovetails. I'm a new guy to planes and chisels, and I thought that my edges were good; they were very sharp, shaving arm hair effortlessly.
But my project is in pine, and cutting dovetails, paring end grain, proved the lie. End grain fibers in the pin area are crushed, not cut. 400/1000/pasted strop is not enough.
Today, I went back to basics, dug out my jig, 400/1k plate, 6k King and 1um and .3um lapping film. Set a 25* bevel, went through the grits to 1k, and reset the jig for a 30* micro bevel, then 6k/1um/.3um. No strop.
THAT is an edge. Night and day difference. Not only can I push the chisel through end grain and get beautiful shavings I can see through, but I can slice sideways in a sweeping motion, like cutting with a knife, and it slices thin, see through shavings off like butter. Gorgeous.
Working on my #4 now. Can't wait to hit the bench as soon as I can squeeze out some time.
Thanks, Sawmill Creek, and everyone here who encouraged me to push for a better edge.

[Patrick Chase]

I could have sworn that "somebody learns something useful about sharpening from SMC" was one of the signs of the apocalypse.

Mike, if you find yourself chasing random family members around trying to get the finest of their fine hairs so that you can demonstrate that your edge passes HHT-69, then you've taken it too far. Everything else is good.

BTW, you should try some 0.1 um diamond compound on a well-broken-in iron lap. I like to refer to it as "pointless sharp".

[Bill McNiel]

I think it come right after "the President makes a lesser Kardashian look like a paradigm of social media class".


Patrick- you owe me big bucks for computer repair after I spit a prime "Adult Beverage" all over my computer.

[Mike Baker 2]

I actually did try an HHT, lol. I don't think the edge geometry/30 degree bevel lends itself to that very well.But you never know.
All I know is the difference is like a bright light came on.
Now I've just got to figure out what I need at the bench to maintain it during a day's use. And yeah, .1 um sounds like way overkill. But what do I know? I thought my chisels were sharp. :eek:

[Jim Koepke]

I thought my chisels were sharp. :eek:

It is likely most folks have felt the same way until improved sharpening skills exposed the error of their thoughts on sharpness.

jtk

[Stanley Covington]

I could have sworn that "somebody learns something useful about sharpening from SMC" was one of the signs of the apocalypse. I think it comes right after "the President makes a lesser Kardashian look like a paradigm of social media class".

Mike, if you find yourself chasing random family members around trying to get the finest of their fine hairs so that you can demonstrate that your edge passes HHT-69, then you've taken it too far. Everything else is good.

BTW, you should try some 0.1 um diamond compound on a well-broken-in iron lap. I like to refer to it as "pointless sharp".

Ha ha! Very good Patrick. You should copyright "Pointless Sharp" and sell it to Shapton for their next series of stones.

[Mike Baker 2]

This forum needs a "Like" button.

[Alan Heffernan]

This forum needs a "Like" button.

LIKE!

Yes it does.

[Jeffery Barton]

I like to call that scary sharp

[Kevin Smira]

One thing that I found handy for softwoods is to grind at a much shallower angle than 25. For me, 17-18º was the sweet spot. That said, if I use that chisel on hardwoods, I'll ruin the edge quicker than Trump gets sued by a porn star. Cleaning the waste out of a DT joint in pine with that shallow angle chisel is night and day difference than my "standard" bevel edge chisels.

HOWEVER, all must be sharp!!!

[John C Cox]

Do you do the whole thing at 17-18 degrees or the primary at that with a teeny microbevel at something taller?

[Kevin Smira]

Do you do the whole thing at 17-18 degrees or the primary at that with a teeny microbevel at something taller?

John,

The whole bevel is 17-18º. Then the micro bevel is a couple degrees-ish. Anything more shallow than 17 degrees causes too many problems.

[John C Cox]

I could have sworn that "somebody learns something useful about sharpening from SMC" was one of the signs of the apocalypse. .

I nominate this "Best SMC quote of the year!" There was some keyboard cleanup involved...

Anyway - the simplest answer is:
The one single factor that prevents any learning is believing you already know.. Then - everybody else is just either a heretic or an idiot...

[Steve Mathews]

The OPs comments are timely following my first attempts at dovetails using the same type of wood and apparently not sharp enough chisels. It was a miserable effort starting first with some ugly looking saw cuts including breaking my newly purchased Knew Concepts fret saw. One of the pin retainers on the cam lock mechanism came off. It was a challenge cleaning up the dovetails using my recently sharpened chisels. I soon discovered that they weren't sharp enough for the soft pine. Fortunately I followed Rob Cosman's recommendation (post chisel sharpening) and purchased a Shapton 16k grit stone. Hopefully that will create a good enough edge.

[Jim Koepke]

The one single factor that prevents any learning is believing you already know..

There is a term for that in psychology:


In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein people of low ability suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their cognitive ability as greater than it is.

An older saying refers to not knowing can be bliss. It is usually said in a different way. My intent is to avoid making it sound derogatory as there have been many times when my bliss has been based on a lack of knowledge.

jtk

[steven c newman]

"The Force can have a great influence on a closed mind" OB1 ?

[John C Cox]

There is a term for that in psychology:

An older saying refers to not knowing can be bliss. It is usually said in a different way. My intent is to avoid making it sound derogatory as there have been many times when my bliss has been based on a lack of knowledge.

jtk

It's a little different though... It's "Ignorance" in the sense of the actual root - to intentionally ignore facts.... It's completely different from a lack of facts... It's intentionally ignoring the facts....

And the source of "Bliss" is the superiority complex that comes from putting yourself on a pedestal and poo-poo-ing everybody else by intentionally ignoring all the facts, logical arguments, data, and information that is put forth....

[Jerry Olexa]

LIKE.....Good thread...Thanks

[Warren West]

But my project is in pine, and cutting dovetails, paring end grain, proved the lie. End grain fibers in the pin area are crushed, not cut. 400/1000/pasted strop is not enough.

That all depends on what is on the strop and how many strokes you give it. I can carve wood, typically bass but also mahogany, walnut etc off a 600 grit diamond and a strop.

With chisels I believe no strop is fine, especially with super fine stones and a roller skate. If you did that free hand, kudos to you. For carving tools which have to be free handed, I've never personally myself or seen anyone that can get as nice of a carving edge off stones or films alone as they can off a leather strop. Probably due to the inherent greater difficult of trying to hold a bevel angle and simultaneously roll the gouge along the circumference of it's edge. A tiny bit of give that leather imparts does what free hand on a fine stone can't.

[Mike Baker 2]

No. I do free hand hone my chisels, but i went back to a guide, back to basics, to remove that variance from the equation. And I will most likely stay with one for a while, and see how it goes.

[Robert Hazelwood]

Working soft wood can be humbling, for sure. Not only is there less tolerance for not-so-sharp tools, but you have to be more conservative with how you remove material. Taking too big of a bite will cause the end grain to tear out, even if you are very sharp. I am doing a bunch of mortise and tenons in yellow pine currently, and I think it may take me longer to do the mortises in this pine than in oak. At least if I want them to be neat.

[glenn bradley]

This forum needs a "Like" button.


LIKE!

Yes it does.

NO! Please no! The mindless clicking of a "like" button devalues any site used for intelligent social interaction. Discussion of the subject is what makes a forum worth visiting. Anyone can punch a "like" button like a lab rat hitting a feeder bar; please don't do it.

[Mike Baker 2]

NO! Please no! The mindless clicking of a "like" button devalues any site used for intelligent social interaction. Discussion of the subject is what makes a forum worth visiting. Anyone can punch a "like" button like a lab rat hitting a feeder bar; please don't do it.

I often hit the "like" button, then comment on the thread. All depends on your perspective.

[Edwin Santos]

I don't know who in the thread originally posted the reference to the Dunning-Kruger effect in psychology, but thank you! I was not aware of it, at least in formal terms.
The post caused me to look it up and it's a fascinating cognitive bias, and one I'm sure we've all encountered before, in one way or another.

Edwin,

[John C Cox]

Working soft wood can be humbling, for sure. Not only is there less tolerance for not-so-sharp tools, but you have to be more conservative with how you remove material. Taking too big of a bite will cause the end grain to tear out, even if you are very sharp. I am doing a bunch of mortise and tenons in yellow pine currently, and I think it may take me longer to do the mortises in this pine than in oak. At least if I want them to be neat.

This... And especially so with Spruce... It has super long fibers - and as such absolutely does not tolerate any flavor of dull tool... On top of that - it has hard grain lines which love to ding up that ultra fine edge.... But it's also mushy - which requires finer bevel angles to actually cut rather than to mush and crumble it to bits... So it's kinda a balancing act...

It's nothing like Mahogany or Cherry - which work just fine with half-dull tools and are pretty tolerant of fairly blunt bevels..

But as with so many things hand tool - Sharp fixes most problems... And it sounds like Mike has it fixed. ;)

[Jim Koepke]

it's a fascinating cognitive bias, and one I'm sure we've all encountered before, in one way or another.

Sometimes we see it in others and sometimes, if fortunate enough to see clearly, we may find it present in ourselves.

Everyone is uninformed about something.

jtk

[Malcolm McLeod]

...
Everyone is uninformed about something.

jtk

I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.

[Patrick Chase]

NO! Please no! The mindless clicking of a "like" button devalues any site used for intelligent social interaction. Discussion of the subject is what makes a forum worth visiting. Anyone can punch a "like" button like a lab rat hitting a feeder bar; please don't do it.

Who let you out of your Skinner Box, anyway?

-- Patrick, who may or may not have worked in SW development for a social network in the past.

[Pat Barry]

Who let you out of your Skinner Box, anyway?

-- Patrick, who may or may not have worked in SW development for a social network in the past.
So, you are saying that you no longer do?

[steven c newman]

Dang it...just burnt another batch of popcorn......

[John C Cox]

Sometimes we see it in others and sometimes, if fortunate enough to see clearly, we may find it present in ourselves.

Everyone is uninformed about something.

jtk

Oh - It's pretty easy to see in others.. Especially "easiest to see" in someone who believes the opposite of you politically... Because you can literally see hallucination cogs and gears start turning in their brain when real facts and data appear which contradict one of their biases....

But the danger is not being able to see that the same thing operates in myself... That I create hallucinations as a way to hand-wave away inconvenient facts and data in exactly the same way others do... Or at least they claim I do.. They are dirty rotten liars so how can you believe them. ;) ;)

The thing is - as a practical matter, we NEED some level of cognative bias simply to get through the day.. And let's face it.. It does serve a real purpose... There is no reason to waste 8 hours plowing internet popcorn reviews and trying to plot out spreadsheet comparisons of all available options to decide which brand of Popcorn you want every time one of our threads veers into a sharpening "discussion"... Cognative bias tells you to just go get whatever is in the cupboard or buy another box of whatever you liked last time..

Likewise - we don't need to spend 8 hours spreadsheet plotting data and reading expert opinions in text books to realize that going back home to your significant other after work is a good, rational idea when there are infinite other possibilities for things to do tonight.... (Hmmm.. I think maybe flying to France tonight after work instead of having dinner with my wife and kids is a perfectly reasonable plan... Cognative bias hand waves it away with "No, that's a dumb idea.."..)

[steven c newman]

Nothing ruins a good argument like a healthy dose of actual facts.....

What was that one quote....about " the things we take as true....from a certain point of view.."

[Patrick Chase]

So, you are saying that you no longer do?

I've always worked well down the stack, in search and retrieval. I'm no longer organizationally connected to a social network.

[John C Cox]

Nothing ruins a good argument like a healthy dose of actual facts.....
Steve my friend - how has that been working for you in actual arguments?

It has been my sad and unfortunate experience that persuasion is far more effective than facts...

[steven c newman]

weeeeeelll...I consider THIS sharp..
380827
For the work I do....

[Patrick Chase]

weeeeeelll...I consider THIS sharp..
380827
For the work I do....

Oh come now, everybody knows that true sharpness is meant to be evaluated exclusively using arm hairs, hanging hairs, curly hairs, loops of rayon thread, exhaustive forum debate, or similar means.

The notion of evaluating the sharpness of a woodworking edge tool by seeing how it cuts wood is just so.... quaint.

Seriously the only thing you could do better is to focus more on the surface instead of the shavings :-).

[steven c newman]

380840
I tend to like it when the wood has a nice sheen to it....
380846
Knots and all.....

[Mike Baker 2]

Oh come now, everybody knows that true sharpness is meant to be evaluated exclusively using arm hairs, hanging hairs, curly hairs, loops of rayon thread, exhaustive forum debate, or similar means.

The notion of evaluating the sharpness of a woodworking edge tool by seeing how it cuts wood is just so.... quaint.

Seriously the only thing you could do better is to focus more on the surface instead of the shavings :-).
We get this a lot in the straight razor community. Everybody wants to start yankin' hairs off their head and trying HHT when they get their razor back from the honer. Never mind that they don't even know how to do one. Shave with the darn thing, see how it feels, how it cuts your beard. And God's sake, stay away from the wet thumbnail test on a finished razor!