How Sharp is Sharp Enough
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ย. 2024
- How sharp is sharp enough when it comes to Hand planes and chisels. that all depends on what you are sharpening and what you are going to use it for. a scrub plane and a smoothing plane do not need to be the same sharpness.
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Your comment about "for the first six months to a year", and "oohs" and "aahs", is real. Spending time SHARPENING and USING the blades/chisels instead of watching videos ABOUT that is the way to get better at sharpening. OK, watching videos is important, but go sharpen something, and keep on trying. (I learned a whole new level of sharpness when I started using sandpaper on glass - I'll evolve to diamonds some day, but they're REAL expensive relative to sandpaper. I don't do this for a living. I do this for fun. If can learn a lot for just dollars - GREAT. Sharper tools have made a HUGE difference. I'll invest more when/if I need to get to the next level.)
Great video. My sharpening has been a journey that began back around 1961 or so. My Dad's barber taught me how to sharpen any blade made with good steel to a level suitable for shaving. I was 12 years old. Then at 14 I got my first #4 Stanley (old one) from a cabinet maker friend of my Dad. He showed me how to cut dovetails. He rarely used measuring devices. He made really high quality "stuff."
Sounds like someone I could get a long with!
Unfortunately he has long ago passed on. He was in his 70's in the 1960's when he was teaching me the finer points of craftsmanship. Now I am 70 and have to admit that when Tom kept saying, "you need to learn to be patient," my mind was focused on what we were building and not listening to his wisdom. Eventually it sunk in and my skills exponentially improved.
When you breathe on the blade you should be able to hear the microbes screaming as they are sliced in half. 😀
LOL yes ! I like that one!
That’s funny.
Another video that I have to watch every now and then to make sure I am doing everything correct
I used to do the shaving bit every time, but now I have a system where I don't seem to need to. I still do the shaving bit every now and again, just to make sure I'm not getting lazy and besides, arm hair takes a while to grow back !!!
Thank you. I'm trying to figure out exactly how sharp is sharp enough. I just got my plane, in not entirely new to woodworking but hand tools are new to me.. anyways I can just feel I shouldn't be having to push as hard as I am.
They're sharp, I got all kinds of cuts in my finger tips from working them, sharper then I keep my knives and I hate dull knives.. but I feel like it could be better.
I'll keep trying.
An old woodcarver living in the next village who only uses gouges, v-chisels (if he has to) etc. told me how he determines if a blade is sharp or needs a few more strokes either on the honing stone or the leather strap: When you put your thumb across the cutting edge and it gives you the feeling that the skin seems to stick on the edge for a short moment, that means your chisel, gouge, whatever is sharp enough and ready to use. He prefers linden for carving but also uses oak wood.
I like your statement that "sharp" depends on the tool and what you're going to use it for.. when I use my carving chisels I just use small strop every few minutes and my chisels stay sharp (I got that from another of your videos ;) )
So true. the finger test really works, but you got to know what that feels like first. glad I could help out. thanks for the encouragement!
He showed me a few of his chisels.. It felt like someone had glued the cutting edge and my finger together. I thank you for your videos, your way of presenting all the different topics. And congratulations for the silver play button. You earned it!
As a beginner I appreciate these tips James thank you.
thanks Earl! my pleasure!
Good video. I sharpen a lot of knives along with my woodworking tools and I use the shave hair method. The reason I use it is because I can judge the sharpness by amount of effort it takes to cut the hair and also if it pulls the hair as it cuts. On knives I grip them loosely and without much pressure it should just wipe the hair off. I've been fooled before by wiping my thumb across the edge to judge sharpness. Sometimes there can be a slight bur that makes it feel sharp, but once you put it to work that bur breaks and leaves a less than ideal edge. Thanks for taking the time to explain your method. I'm guilty of sharpening too often, and your video teaches me that it's ok to go a little longer between sharpening. Thanks.
Right on. No matter what the tool is sharpened is just about bringing two edges together. And so much fun when you do get that perfect sharpness.
Thanks James. Sharpening is always something I struggle to get to a skill level where I want to be. I know you have probably covered this previously in another video, but for those of us who are not at a James Wright skill level: Should we use a honing guide? Thanks again.
as with all hand tools it is a skill that can only be learned from messing up. There is nothing wrong with a honing guide, but do not expect it to teach you freehand sharpening. if you like it go for it! it works great and is an easy way to get a great edge every time.!
@@WoodByWright Thanks James. Really appreciate the response.
Great video. Knowing if i got my tools sharp enough was the hardest to figure out when learning by reading books, magazines and blogs. The end grain test really helped when I was learning
If a tool cuts how you want it to then it is sharp enough.
so true!
Great summary - just so happens to be about what I do as well. Probably not too surprising since I learned most of my stuff from you, Rex, or Paul Sellers. I do need to pick up a dedicated #4 for smoothing, I only have one for scrubbing. I'm currently using one of my Jack's as a smoother, which isn't bad, but it can be clumsy on smaller work pieces.
The end grain demo was a nice comparison. Too often we forget that not all people have arm hair to shave; (our young boys and girls, often women, and some men). My self I often use paper from a tablet; holding only one corner I slice off strips. If the paper cuts clean 3 or 4 times in a row, then it is ready to be used. Find a method that works for you and stay with it; it will not be long until you will know when your tool is sharp. Thanks again for sharing info that helps us learn, it makes wood working fun! Mark
thanks!
For renovation stuff, you can sharpen a chisel with a random orbit with it doing it’s intended job just fine. Your dollar chisel will work just fine prying and wedging. For my bench chisels, it’s honestly not that much work as long as you KEEP it boned, else you’d have to go back to the stones. Mortising chisels... while your angles of cutting will determine more of the result, your walls on the two ends will generally thank you more with less crushed fibre if your chisels are a bit sharper.
Great Video, James!!!
When asked about sharpness, I give "the technician's approach"...
If you're ever doing the work, and find yourself sweating and shaking as you strain into the job, it's probably the dullness of whatever blade you're pushing.
There's almost NEVER a need to force or "man-handle" the tools. SO it comes to stepping back and "trouble shooting" the issue. In most situations, sharpness should be the first thing you at least look at... It's the kind of "basic" thing that a lot of us can so easily overlook. We like to DO the work, not so much PREPARE for it.
SO... in the steps of trouble shooting in-shop issues, "Is the tool actually sharp?" might be a great first item to check and "cross off" the list of things you might have going against you.
My preference for tool sharpness... Is sharp enough to do the job so I don't have to kill myself... or just dull enough that I don't get myself carved INTO trouble any faster than absolutely necessary. (if that makes sense). ;o)
Right on. that is the way to go every time!
@@WoodByWright Thanks... I kinda have a preference for "simplicity of procedure"...lolz ;o)
Thanks now I can be the sharpest tool in the shed. Even if my tools are not.
Great video James. I’m still at that stage where it’s not quite there. I did buy a strop and the green compound but haven’s had a chance to try it out yet.
It comes with time! Have fun with the strip!
I only go as sharp as cutting paper with ease. I don't want need or want bald patches on my arms or chisels suitable for circumcising newborn males.I'm far from expert, but I can get my chisels and planes up to the standard I need to be limited by find my other limitations.
I never used to be able to sharpen, so that's a huge leap.
sounds like a plan. it is always when people find sharp.
Every time I spend (as a newbie) sharpening my tools, I discover a "new level" of sharpness. Eventually I will plateau and achieve a decent level of sharp, I hope it is without a jig or system, just instinct. Your capability is quite unique. Thanks $0.02
Thanks Matthew! it is a fun road to go down!
A great useful baseline for what to look out for in a sharp blade simple useful and really practical sharing of information as good as it gets on TH-cam Mr Wright Thank You!
Thanks Luke.
This was very interresting for me. Thank you!
Yeah, me too. $0.02
my pleasure thanks!
haha James, I am just getting to the super sharp phase of wood working and I can definitely see the difference in my accuracy and the overall outcome of my work. Great video man. Thank you...
I love when that comes around. makes everything hapy!
That slick is sick...sickly sharp.
LOL thanks Ben!
Thanks James.
My pleasure.
As much as I don't like spending the money I'm gonna have to buy diamond plates. Bought a bunch of Chinese carving tools for very very little money BUT lordy do they need a lot of grinding. About half a buck each and some have weird shapes but they seem to be pretty good steel. Gonna reverse the cannel on most of the gouges because they are really thick for their sizes. Oh, the kerfing/rabbet plane worked fantastic! Made a 5 tpi rip blade from the back of a very abused old saw, at 69 years of age it took me a little over two hours to get 178' of 3/4 rabbet. Then two Tylenol and a few cold adult beverages and the smile of satisfaction.
LOL that sounds like a really good time!
Good Video James,
As I always have said, your just sharpen to the task as you mentioned with the scrub vs jack vs smoother.
I rarely go past the 1000 diamond and almost never hone these days UNLESS... I'm just not getting the smoothness in the surface finish I am desiring.
I'm one of those people that do not take tools to my skin ever to test.
Like You, in the course of a regular day, I go from hone to the wood and it is either sharp enough to work with or it is not.
Peace, W
right on! if it is doing what you want it is sharp enough.
There has to be some kind of tanned fur that would be a good replacement for shaving one's arm. Or, some kind of material that has a nap (knap?) that will indicate sharpness. Personally, I use a page from the local phone books that come out. In a pinch, I use thin receipt paper. I use the weight of the blade or chisel to cut down the paper. Plus, I find I still need a jig to hold my blades at a consistent angle while sharpening. I have tried to practice freehand but end up having to rework the angle in the jig. More practice, I guess.
I think this was a great explanation
thanks! glad I could help!
Hi James. I used to sharpen like you do but I've found that rubbing the glass of the chisel on the strop makes them not perfectly flat as I like to have them. I have eliminated the strop.
all my chisels have a slight camber to them. it is fun to see how different people do it.
i have been doing some scrub planing and I always try to sharpen my tools the sharpest they can be. I can never get the scrub plane blades to be as razor sharp feeling as the standard non radiused blades . The scrub blade planes remove waste wood fine - fine although I cant help but feel my technique is off? I use diamond stones and strops . Please advise thanks - I use a sort of arcing careful stroke on the stones and also use a carful parallel stroke on each part of the blades edge repeated over and over on each degree on angle.. never seems to get razor sharp feeling though!
I don't actually get my scrub plane irons to be 100% razor sharp. Due to the amount of work they're doing they would dull incredibly quickly in comparison to a normal iron. I actually only sharpen my scrub plane maybe once every 6 months to a year. It's one of those things that when you really make it sharp it feels great for the first 40 strokes or so and then is right back to where it was. But yes it is an incredibly difficult iron to learn to sharpen well. and unfortunately there are a hundred different ways of doing it it's just one of those things trying to find a method that works well for you individually.
@@WoodByWright What is the best way to clean sticky 'sappy' wood shavings from the sole of my stanley plane irons? Many thanks
Okay, you must have check for sharpness on your head before your arm... great tutorial James!!! BoBeJoe
LOL nice man! thanks!
Thanks for the info James! 😃👍🏻👊🏻
my pleasure!
Fantastic info! My issue is how to set up the plane. How much blade should protrude? Etc...
Troy Walker well... technically move the blade back until it’s taking zero shavings. Advance it forward 1/4 turn at a time until you take a light shaving then adjust your side to side. Most people check side to side looking down the sole. Get it even, take another shaving, and see if you like it or you might need to adjust it back and try again. It takes a little time, patience and practice. Oh and wax your soul with an emergency candle. Be careful though, it might slide down the wood realllly easy
Thanks, but what about the gap in the sole? How wide?@@JeepTherapy
The setup depends on the use. I spend a lot more time detailing my smoothing plane then I do my jack plane. And the scrub plain almost never gets set up of any kind. I have several videos on different types of setup suggest looking up how to set up smoothing plane. As that will give you the most detail.
But why did the plane iron get sharper? It looked like you did the same thing you did with the chisel. Is it just a question of spending longer on each stone? Or longer on the highest grit ones?
Yes very helpful to me too. Thank you for another good tutorial ! Regarding this can of worms you mentioned, presumably if the plane blade can open the can, then it is sharp enough ?
LOL thems fighting words!
Great explanation. When I sharpened my new chisels for the first time I was one armed with my left one being in a sling. I noticed my half inch wasn't cutting as easily last time I used it. Perhaps it's time to revisit the stones.....
I must admit I love insanely scary sharp. I get insanely sharp from wet dry sandpaper on a piece of red granite then a strop. So sharp that the blade does not need to touch my skin to cut hair. Why? I can use that blade longer between sharpening getting more work done with less effort. Thank you for being real though. This is woodworking for everyone and I love it.
Thanks Ryan my pleasure. It is so much fun when you have a truly sharp iron
Thanks for sharing that
my pleasure!
ANOTHER good(I mean for guys like me,) topic James. Sounds like your cold is getting better too...cheers...rr Normandy
Thanks Richard. yes it is getting better!
A great video once again James, very useful indeed. Thank you.
Thanks Mark!
Thank you
my pleasure!
A good hand-tool woodworker is measured with the strength of his arm hairs.
LOL yup!
Or rather by how little arm hair he has.
Hi James, nice video. Is the medium plate really necessary? I was looking at eze lap plates, their coarse, medium and fine are 250, 400 and 600 grit respectively. 250 to 600 doesn't seem to be such a huge leap. So I am thinking of skipping the medium. What do you think?
Do not get the eze lap diamond plates. They do not last long. Also the grit is that they come with is very poor. Mine are from DMT. Define grit on that is up to 1200 mesh. Even there the middle grit is not necessary It just saves a good chunk of time as it takes longer on the fine grit to remove the scratches from the course.
@@WoodByWright Thanks!
What is name of fluid used
Dollar store window cleaner. Just the cheapest stuff you can find.
That will work!
I check out your site looks like you go to 1200 grit for sharpening I do the same 300 600 then 1200 still only getting kinda sharp barely cut the hairs on my arm. Do you think the green compound would make a noticeable difference? As idk what this yellow compound from wood craft is
I do not remember what the yellow is but with a good strop it should do the trick. are you getting a wire burr to fall off?
@@WoodByWright thanks and yes I'm getting a little burr and my strop seems to buff and take care of that fine. I'm using credit card size diamond stones so maybe getting the bigger ones could help. Honestly after watching your video I'm getting a lot better shavings but strangely I had much better results pulling the hand plane towards me at the start now it's about the same planning normal direction.
Sharp is just a state of mind. 😅
Great video. By the way what type of blade is that in your smoothing plane
thanks Cody. that is a prototype blade from DFM tool works!
@@WoodByWright how are you liking it
thank you James . lol what a slick
Lol thanks
So you don't use secondary bevels one any of your tools?
Nope. If your free hand sharpening micro bevels just take more time. They really don't have a direct benefit at that point.
Would it be fair to say you could sharpen the blade to the finish its being used to prep for? Ie the scrub plane still leaves tracks that need to be removed by the jack plane so you don't need to sharpen the scrub to the finish plane sharpness. That being said if you like to spend time sharpening go for it. I personally do not but that's just me if you like to sharpen everything to 50000 grit that's cool too.
In general, that's true. Usually you need to get over about 400 grit for it to cut. Cleanly. But anything after that you're just working on getting a smoother finish.
I would say TOO sharp would be when you do the arm hair test and you don't even realize you just peeled your skin off your arm and all of the sudden, BLOOD!!!!
LOL sounds like fun!
My arms aren't very hairy (i've got more then enough on my head tho) is this going to hinder my wood working progression?
LOL my hare is all on my back!
Hi I have trouble getting very sharp edges on chisels. I have a 150 diamond stone and 300 grit and also a faithfull 2 in 1 diamond stone that is 400 and 100. I feel my technique is good now but the 1000 grit has lots of black splodges on the stone from the restoring process of old tools. I wonder if they are making sharpening less effective? Should I get a better stone? Also the chisels I find hardest to sharpen are my grand fathers old marples chisels the steel seems super tough to grind down and should I get the bevel completely flat and like a 25 degree angle ? at the moment the bevel is not a flat angle but sort of slopped gradually curved. Please advise thanks..
The 150 and 300 have a few black splodges also, although far fewer than the 1000 grit, I also am careful to make sure the stones are wearing evenly and check with a rule flatness as a guide. the 150 and 300 seems to grind way better than the 1000, I know 1000 is very fine some where between the 1000grit and my make shift strop the blades done seem to increase much further in sharpness.. If you think its not the stones, I feel its the strop ... the strop used to noticeably increase sharpness, it got a few accidental splodges of glue on the edges and is quite over loaded with compound, the leather was just low quality scrap leather also. Please advise? maybe i should make a higher quality strop? thanks
the black on the plates should be cleaned up that is clogging the cutting edges. usually with a Dimond plate with glass cleaner and a green scotch bright pad will clean it nicely. the strop should be cleaned too. you can scrape off the old compound with a card scraper. then new paste can be added. I love hores butt for my strops. here is what I sell www.woodbywright.com/shop if you want a more detailed answer or want to email me my address is in the about tab here on youtube or you can send me a message on my website.
@@WoodByWright thanks alot man for fast replys always with the detail.
I used an eraser and it got a bunch of the black spots off and made it generally alot more shiney. I also used dish detergant and a toothbrush and warm water. there are some stubborn spots left so I will get some glass cleaner and try that. Thanks alot
Good 👌 😎
I do the Paul Sellers sharpening method. After you learn that and use your tools, you'll understand what sharp is.
Good way to explain sharpness. If someone wanted to save on razor blades, they could just shave their face (kidding).
Hey what blade is that in your #4? Is that a tsunesaburo aogami? How do you like it? I almost ordered one yesterday
this was a prototype by DFM toolworks I love it!
@@WoodByWright ohhh interesting, any details available?
Ooo wormy! 🤣🤣
Lol
the blade is sharp when two sides combine to one line and you can not see the line.
You can actually get it sharper than that. It's a human eye cannot see a tip that is smaller than a few thousand atoms wide. But with a good steel you can get it down to a couple hundred atoms.
@@WoodByWright it is not necessary.
COMMENT!!! Sharp... sharp is sharp. You’ll know it when you bleed shaving your arm and you didn’t even press down. That my friends is what I call stupid sharp. It doesn’t need to be that sharp. It will actually dull quicker if it’s that sharp because the iron is so thin it rolls the end a little kind of like a card scraper.
So glad it wasn't deadly sharp! 😁
LOL that is the fun kind!
Great video but I think we both can agree you can not use your head to test the sharpness!!
where is the fun in that!
Is it sharp? Uh...yes? Will it cut light? Not yet.
Lol quantum level sharpening.
Thanks to your red hair and sunburned skin, we just have to take your word for it on how well that blade shaved you. 😁
LOL I know it is hard to see my arm hair!
6:03 That chisel is dull! It is was sharp, you would have lost a chunk of your arm!
Not with a really sharp chisel.
First in Europe!
Except I'm in Europe too :) Not to worry, we'll share the cake. We get cake, right?
@@63DegreesNorth I'd settle for an ice cold beer right now...
@@rick91443 Over here in Belgium it is very hot so I could use an ice cold beer too LOL
Sorry Richard. you are my second favorite person today!
First! :)
WOOT WOOT! my favorite person today.
00:38 In my humble opinion; when I can shave my underarm hair, I'll put it into the *ultimate sharpness* category.
05:23 _easy_ James.. not the *blood vessel*