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°
@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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Yeah, dad taught me to use a stone way back with our camping knives. When I moved on to making bassoon reeds, getting the old straight razor blades sharp for scraping gave me lots of practice. The rolling one I have is double sided diamond grit. I was neve able to get such a nice, flat edge before - I'm guessing my eyballing angles with multiple stones left a bit to chance!
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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.
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.
Severely divided...
This made me chuckle. People become amazingly entrenched and argumentative over the tiniest of first world viewpoints.
A newly flint-knapped axe is probably the sharpest thing I've ever touched.I'm a complete amateur, for me a quality 'steel' is a quick way of putting the edge back on. However, at £130 the ceramic global steel is a world apart from the old steel my wife inherited from her parents (old steels on quality knives are like using 40 grit sandpaper on your walnut china cabinet). Use your ceramic!
I have various grit stones, never used since getting three US made ceramic 2x8" benchstones by Spyderco.
I indulged in a sharpener by Kakuri, it takes the chunkiest of Japanese plane blades and wide chisels.
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I have only two planes.
A large Japanese benchplane that has to be assembled.
A Lie-Nielson No. 140b-r, a little block plane, low angled skew bladed, an absolute gem.I've used some dreadful and average chisels over the years. Lidl specials, Flexi; and vintage japanese which are nice.
Without doubt the best chisels ever owned were this specific Irwin Marples set (10503421)
Marples do lots, but this set is outstanding, arrives sharp, does anything. Gave it away last year to a pro carpenter who borrowed & liked them so much, as a thank you.
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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.
Severely divided...
This made me chuckle. People become amazingly entrenched and argumentative over the tiniest of first world viewpoints.
A newly flint-knapped axe is probably the sharpest thing I've ever touched.I'm a complete amateur, for me a quality 'steel' is a quick way of putting the edge back on. However, at £130 the ceramic global steel is a world apart from the old steel my wife inherited from her parents (old steels on quality knives are like using 40 grit sandpaper on your walnut china cabinet). Use your ceramic!
I have various grit stones, never used since getting three US made ceramic 2x8" benchstones by Spyderco.
I indulged in a sharpener by Kakuri, it takes the chunkiest of Japanese plane blades and wide chisels.That Kakuri guide is beautiful! Not a bad price, either. Might have to get one!
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Yeah, dad taught me to use a stone way back with our camping knives. When I moved on to making bassoon reeds, getting the old straight razor blades sharp for scraping gave me lots of practice. The rolling one I have is double sided diamond grit. I was neve able to get such a nice, flat edge before - I'm guessing my eyballing angles with multiple stones left a bit to chance!
And a consistent angle is the hardest thing for me to get right. Some days I can do pretty good, other days all I can do is turn a sharp blade in to a bludgeon.
Have considered newer methods to keep consistent and the rolling kind is one I’d like to try. Things get more complicated - and $$$ - from there. Much more complicated as it turns out; some systems have dozens of parts and would take up half of the garage!
Stones are at least somewhat compact and there are enough variations and methods to keep me busy for the foreseeable future. The powered systems look good, but in the words of my British carpenter friend, “Rubbish! All that thing will do is let you f it up faster!”
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I have only two planes.
A large Japanese benchplane that has to be assembled.
A Lie-Nielson No. 140b-r, a little block plane, low angled skew bladed, an absolute gem.I've used some dreadful and average chisels over the years. Lidl specials, Flexi; and vintage japanese which are nice.
Without doubt the best chisels ever owned were this specific Irwin Marples set (10503421)
Marples do lots, but this set is outstanding, arrives sharp, does anything. Gave it away last year to a pro carpenter who borrowed & liked them so much, as a thank you.
That Marples set is sweet!
The chisel in the picture I posted is a Marples (Made in Sheffield, says right in it) but a cheaper version with a plastic handle. Perfect for practice, certainly a better chisel than I am as a mortiser, but not much to look at. Being as I almost never need to chisel anything I think I’ll focus on appearance, and perhaps history.
Turns out there’s a huge swap meet every Saturday about two towns over. Might have have go out and see what I can find.
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Can anyone recommend a pocket whittling knife please. Folding type, small, robust, single blade is fine
No recommendations here, but perhaps you’ll consider how Ernest Warther approached the problem of finding blades to whittle out the intricate little parts he needed for his trains.
He made his own. Should keep you busy for a while.
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I tried a few of the powered systems without much luck. Way better than nothing for those not wanting to spend time with stones... They produced a more even surface than the draw through options but often took too much off for finish work. There is also the issue of not working very well close to the handle on many knives. The really expensive ones are probably much better, but we work with very limited space in our city apartment! I did get a multi angle wooden block that holds ceramic rods that worked fairly well or is good for a light touch-up.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BN4Y6ZS3?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_5 -
Looks like something to try!
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Even though the angles are set by the block, the angle is really determined by the steadyness of the hand. The other thing with rods is that they are good at maintaining an edge, but tend to introduce a wavy edge more than a flat over time. I didn't notice until I started using the rolling sharpener. One issue with the rolling ones I didn't think about was that many thinner knives won't stick up over the magnetic block without some fooling around. Not a dealbreaker, but something to work through.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJRF3S7T?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1
I went with a cheap one first to see if I liked it. The better ones offer the option to replace grits.
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