Sharpening
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Welcome! / Forums / General Woodworking Discussions / Woodworking Methods and Techniques / Sharpening
Ah, thanks that makes sense. I’ll try fiddling with it a little more, and if I can’t figure it out I’ll just have to start training myself to do it by hand.
I have a Tormek which I use for developing a bevel and gone Paul’s method with EZ-Lap Diamonds, freehand and a strop. So far so good.
Steve
Equipment wise, I don’t have diamond stones, so I use wet/dry sandpaper (400/800/1200 grit) on a pane of plate glass. I don’t stick it on, just fold it under the glass – the weight keeps it flat. It’s not perfect, I tear (well, cut) the sandpaper pretty often which is annoying and slows me down. That might improve if I spray glued it on. I also don’t have a strop, so I just rub it on some MDF a few times.
Technique wise I use Paul’s method which is also my grandpa’s method – it boils down to “hold it about this high and push” 🙂 I guess there’s a bit more to it than that, with the dropping of the hand to create the convex bevel, but that feels pretty natural to me.
This tends to get me somewhere close to sharp, but I’m never sure if I could be getting them sharper. I guess in reality sharpening is like a lot of things, you can obsess and optimise until the cows come home but as long as you get the fundamentals right you’re probably OK.