Hobbies
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But it arrived quite dull. Very disappointing. Warther offers a lifetime sharpening service but they’re some 80 miles away and I decided it was high time to learn how to sharpen properly. Reddit, then. Dozens of YouTube videos. I became a bit obsessed, actually.
After several attempts I got the Warther knife sharp enough to use then proceeded to sharpen every other knife in the drawer. After all that practice I went back to the Warther and got it very sharp indeed. Touched up all of the other knives as well.
Ran out of knives and moved on to chisels, which involve a somewhat different process. My chisels are a motley collection, mostly inherited from my dad who used them for things like opening paint cans. Nothing to lose here - they’re mostly junk.
Bought some sharpening apparatus - quite a bit of apparatus, actually. More YouTube, more Reddit. The first one took most of a day but it came out great! So much nicer to use, and I used it quite a bit at Kim’s house. Sharpened the rest of them over time - not much else pressing when there’s 2 feet of snow on the ground and it’s 19°
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Gotta run, more later.
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But it arrived quite dull. Very disappointing. Warther offers a lifetime sharpening service but they’re some 80 miles away and I decided it was high time to learn how to sharpen properly. Reddit, then. Dozens of YouTube videos. I became a bit obsessed, actually.
After several attempts I got the Warther knife sharp enough to use then proceeded to sharpen every other knife in the drawer. After all that practice I went back to the Warther and got it very sharp indeed. Touched up all of the other knives as well.
Ran out of knives and moved on to chisels, which involve a somewhat different process. My chisels are a motley collection, mostly inherited from my dad who used them for things like opening paint cans. Nothing to lose here - they’re mostly junk.
Bought some sharpening apparatus - quite a bit of apparatus, actually. More YouTube, more Reddit. The first one took most of a day but it came out great! So much nicer to use, and I used it quite a bit at Kim’s house. Sharpened the rest of them over time - not much else pressing when there’s 2 feet of snow on the ground and it’s 19°
@steve-miller that sounds like a lot of work!
when there’s 2 feet of snow on the ground and it’s 19°
Yikes! And yuck. This weather is so erratic. Yesterday it was something like 78F here and sunny, it felt glorious. Today it's pouring rain and chilly and the temps are dropping.
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Very nice knives, and that prefilled block with 24 wooden handled looks superb.
Once sharp all you'll need is a honing steel to realign the edge. Searching their site, Warther make a wood handled diamond one for $62 that looks much like my all metal/diamond Global... highly recommended purchase. -
I'm glad to see that the Warther Museum is still open. I visited there many years ago. For a train buff like me, it was especially interesting.
That area was a very popular spot for my family to visit, particularly my parents. If you visit again, the (https://ageofsteamroundhouse.org/)Age of Steam roundhouse just south of Sugar Creek has a large collection of steam locomotives and other railroad equipment.
Big Al
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One problem with chisels, as opposed to knives, is the first thing you have to do is get the back flat. This is no easy task, at least not on my chisels where the backs were anything but. It didn’t help that a Fine Woodworking article informed me that they must not only be flat but mirror polished
. I have yet to try mirror polishing, and it’s in my list of skills to learn, but right now I’m settling for flat.This is pretty much the finish I can get so far. It’s not beautiful but it’s really smooth and the blade is sharp enough to cut paper towel.
Flattening takes hours and hours on a stone and I was starting to get frustrated. More videos - pro guys use powered bench sanders. Went to Harbor Freight get and had a look. Found this for $80.
$80 isn’t a lot of money to sink to a hobby (what good is a hobby if you can’t get accessories?) but I passed on it. I have too many tools as it is and am running out of storage. Instead I came up with this kludge - I’m not proud of it but it works!
Chisels got much faster and I can move on to…
Planes!
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I’ve been in construction for some 50 years and have never gotten the hang of using planes. Luckily, I never fancied myself a carpenter and rarely found occasion to need one. Watched more vids and learned the setup - no wonder mine didn’t work! Despite being a 150 year old design they’re a lot more complicated than I thought.
Add that to the fact that they also have to be flat and sharp. My plane, again inherited from my Dad, was neither. Here’s how it started, about as far from mirror polished as you can get:
I can buy a new Stanley block plane for $40, and a nameless new Amazon plane for half of that, but I want to learn stuff and it belonged to my Dad. I know he used it to make the tables I have in my den to this day and I wanted to restore it. Started on the upside down belt sander, finished on a stone, and got to this point in a couple of hours. Not a mirror finish but certainly serviceable.
Bought a jig, figured out how to sharpen it, put it together and it works! Even painted it! Kind of proud of it, actually - I was going to throw it away.
The Stanley is the bronze one. The blue one is one I’ve had for decades - not sure where it came from. Got it working too, but the fact is it’s completely worn out. Must have belonged to somebody who installed a whole lot of doors. No matter, it’s going to be a display case queen. I guarantee that Sears never offered it in Peacock blue.
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So - what have you been working on lately?
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Very nice knives, and that prefilled block with 24 wooden handled looks superb.
Once sharp all you'll need is a honing steel to realign the edge. Searching their site, Warther make a wood handled diamond one for $62 that looks much like my all metal/diamond Global... highly recommended purchase.The internet is severely divided on the use of honing rods. Chefs swear by them, sharpening nerds not so much. I have two - the classic fluted steel one and a ceramic one.
I keep the steel one in the kitchen and it seems to work as advertised. Haven’t tried the ceramic one yet.
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I've had good luck with the rolling sharpeners with the magnetic block that holds the knives at a consistent angle. What has been your favorite system so far?
I like using sharpening stones. Started with cheap Amazon wet stones and moved to diamond stones because they’re cleaner and last longer.
I’ve seen the rolling ones and have no doubt that they work great for sharpening up a kitchen knife that has gotten dull and needs a touch up. Try to do much more than that though, and they’re going to be very slow.
Then there’s the whole tradition/craftsmanship thing. “Romancing the stone”, if you will.
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