Scary Sharp question

[Thom Sturgill]

In researching 'Scary Sharp" I came across what purports to be the original post to rec.woodworking where the term was first used in 1999. The writer indicates that this was his original development. Unfortunately, my older brother taught it to me in the late 70s when we had to sharpen some planer blades at my dads guitar shop. He learned/used it while working at the Grammar Guitar factory in the late 60s - early 70s.

My question is - what is your first exposure to using sandpaper to achieve extreme sharpness? How old is the technique really? Inquiring minds want to know.

BTW his technique for sharpening chisels was to sand them on a belt sander with a fine emory cloth belt and then take it to a buffer. These chisels were only used for trimming internal braces in guitars - typically spruce - but you *could* shave with them.

[mike holden]

"scary sharp" probably goes back to the first caveman to be on the receiving end of a flint weapon.
There is nothing special about the pairing of an adjective and a noun.
AFAIK the term is not copyrighted.
So when? Probably sometime in antiquity.
Mike

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

My question is - what is your first exposure to using sandpaper to achieve extreme sharpness? How old is the technique really? Inquiring minds want to know.

The only thing unique about Scary Sharp is the name.
After that it all comes to nothing more than taking an abrasive and doing with it, that which it was made to do: Abrade.

I was using abrasive paper before I purchased my first stone. How rocket science was it to use the only abrasive I had handy? I have used belt sanders for sharpening for as long as there has been one in my life whether at the machine shop or my home shop.

The thing about using any soft backed abrasive that I find almost constant is that you still need to do a final dressing on a truly hard surface such as a stone or lapping plate. this because it is my experience that no matter what you do the softness of the paper backing rolls and squishes about a bit and allows an edge deformity to develop that I find to be - - well - - dull.

[John Goodridge]

I have seen Scary Sharp with a (tm) trademark stamp, so there may be paperwork filed on the name. I associate Mike Dunbar with the name. The general technique of sharpening with sandpaper has probably been used ever since sandpaper was tough enough and cheap enough. I do not know how old sandpaper is; but I assume the early versions probably did not have the abrasive or the glue to do a reasonable job abrading iron or steel.

Popular Woodworking April 2007 (#161) had an article on the technique by Dunbar. I do not notice the Scary Sharp term anywhere, so maybe I am wrong and he is not related to the name. In any case, his use of or refinement of sharpening with sandpaper was stated to have started in 1980 when he started traveling around teaching how to make Windsor chairs. The students would bring their tools and the vast majority of them needed sharpening to be useful. The workshops he was at did not seem to have much in the way of a good sharpening setup. This led to using three things that were always available: sandpaper, a flat surface and small pieces of wood. The article has more details.

[Marcus Ward]

The (TM) is a joke, sort of tongue-in-cheek.

[John Goodridge]

Oh, I always assumed it was actually registered. Learn something new every day.