Hobbies
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My latest obsession began when we visited the Ernest Warther Museum back in November. Some of the most spectacular wood carvings I’ve ever seen!
https://www.google.com/search?q=warther+museum&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari#ebo=0
Earnest’s son David runs a knife making shop on the property. A fascinating process and the knifes are beautiful!
So I asked for one for Christmas and received this 9” chef’s knife. A beautiful piece of work.
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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. Move 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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