Published on 27 Feb 2017
Chisels come from the manufacturer needing preparing or initialising as well sharpening. How do you check they are flat and get them sharp? Paul shows you the process he follows. This gets them to the level we need for crisp and accurate work.
For more information on these topics, see https://paulsellers.com or https://woodworkingmasterclasses.com
March 3, 2017
Sharpening a Chisel with Paul Sellers
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December 13, 2015
How to Sharpen a Knife with Paul Sellers
Published on 11 Dec 2015
Paul shows his very simple method of how to get a razor sharp edge on your kitchen, carving, pocket or any form of knife using just a few pieces of sandpaper or some diamond paddles.
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July 27, 2015
Sharpening and Setting the Bench Plane with Paul Sellers
Published on 23 Jul 2015
Paul Sellers shows how he sharpens and sets a bench plane in his every day of work. A quick and easy guide to get your plane working.
October 25, 2014
Sharpening woodworking tools
Paul Sellers talks about the practical limits to sharpening woodworking tools like planes and chisels:
As I have said, we have become something of an obsessive bunch when it comes to the different elements of working wood; sharpness has become more and more obsessive. Now we are not talking about the violin maker seeking sharp levels for clear tone from the wood and who uses wood so soft, unsharp gouges and planes would bruise rather than cut the fine surfaces he strives to achieve. His standards parallel the levels needed for severing tissue by the surgeon’s hand, not the bench joiner chopping mortises and cutting a few dovetails.
It’s unfortunate that since the demise of ordinary craftsmanship we now turn to guru wood writers and not wood-wrights. Woodwrights are no longer there to give us our information of course. It’s true too that the sources of information become more and more questionable. Three recent sources of information teaching on sharpening techniques I tracked back to tool catalog and online sales people selling products for sharpening. Most of the information they have is not new but regurgitated. Each phase of sharpening change marks another saleable product and so we see Japanese water stones added to carborundum stones, Arkansas stones and Washita stones and then came diamonds and abrasive films, diamond paste and flattening stones. The list goes on.
We have survived the different gospels of scary sharp and micro-bevel methodology and are emerging to this very simple reality. As long as you start the cutting edge somewhere around 30-degrees and polish it out it will cut well. If you you sharpen to around 1200-grit it will cut most anything you need in woodworking. If you sharpen to a polished edge of around 15,000-grit you can slice the most delicate of materials effortlessly, but 98% of the time that’s far from necessary. What am I saying? I’m saying that we generally sharpen to task but often sharpen to a higher level because it’s not much extra effort. We all know after a few efforts at sharpening that the greatest effort comes at the start of the process when we have to regain ground to get through a fractured and dulled edge and back to a productive cutting edge. That said, it’s not a big deal, just a few extra strokes on the coarse diamonds gets you there. So, if that is the case, why do we sharpen to higher levels than are usually needed. Well, it is a fact that the more polished the two plains forming the arête for a cutting edge are, the sharper the edge is but the stronger the edge is too. As I said, the extra effort is worth the work because it’s so quick and effective. It’s not so much what we do to the edge to establish it but what we do to the edge after we have prepared it for work. Taking the chisel to the surface of the wood to work the wood begins an immediate process of edge reduction we now know is edge fracture but was once called wear. No matter the steel, edge fracture occurs at some level but some steels fracture more readily than others. What we often do not realise is that it is impossible to find a steel that both takes and retains an edge and at the same time has a level of durability we can rely on forever. All edges wear away by fracture and constantly need restoring.
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September 2, 2014
Sharpening woodworking tools
I’m an occasional woodworker, but I’m always aware I don’t sharpen my tools as often as I should. One of the reasons I don’t is that it’s such a hassle to sharpen them properly: it’s not as simple as sharpening a kitchen knife, and you need to spend time to work through from a coarse grit (250 or so), through medium grit (1000) and into fine (4000) or even superfine (15000 and higher). This video by Paul Sellers has persuaded me that it doesn’t have to be that way for most of the woodworking hand tools I’m likely to use:
Published on 8 Nov 2013
In this video Paul Sellers shows that you don’t need to sharpen to 15,000+ grit on you planes, chisels and other woodworking tools. 250-grit works just fine for most of our woodwork. Paul addresses the myths and misinformation put forward, and challenges what we think about sharpening.
To find out more about Paul Sellers and the work he is involved with visit http://paulsellers.com
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