 The Chisels are one of the simplest woodworking tools, but also require some of the most prep to function properly. The flat back of the chisel is essentially doing the same job as the sole of a plane, in that it becomes the reference surface when you use the tool for pairing. So it's essential that the whole surface is on one plane, is all level from tip to heel. You also want to have a high level of polish on the back of the chisel, because you have to have the same level of polish on the back at the cutting area as you have on the bevel side. What that means is because you're doing a large surface area, you have to have the whole thing polish to the same level. This means that if you are chirping with a honing guide or any other method that we've talked about, you can't use David Charles' Wurth's ruler trick, which is too bad because it speeds up the process. But what happens then is you would put a slight back bevel on the tool, and you wouldn't be able to pair. It would not engage properly. So this is a blade that has to be done the full surface. Now that doesn't mean that you have to do have an optical mirror flat surface from tip to heel. Everything needs to be in plane with each other, but it doesn't have to be an absolute mirror shine back here as long as it's all cleaned throughout. What you don't want is for the edges to crown off or for the tip, to crown off. And you need to have a polish as far back as you can get it. If you take the time and get the entire thing done, great. But what's really important is the section out here at the tip and that that then transfers all the way through to the back on one plane. Now I'm going to work with one of our new chisels. Just to show to some degree how flat our chisels come out of the box. If you're working with another tool, you may find that you have to do a lot more work than what I'm going to be doing here. The basic principle is going to be the same though. The very first thing I'm going to do when I get a new tool, whether it's brand new like this one or just new to me, is I'm going to check for what I've got to work with. If the back of that blade is already flat enough that I can get a polish on the majority of it, then that saves me a ton of work. So the very first thing I'm going to do is go to my 8,000 grit stone. Now, it's essential that this is flat. I already flattened this one. The process I would use to do that is to put a pencil grid on so I can see where it is and then using a diamond lapping plate or wet dry sandpaper on a flat granite plate or piece of glass. Make sure that that surface is dead flat because then you have something to control from. If this surface isn't flat, you have no idea how flat the back of the chisel is. Now I'm going to divide the stone into three segments. I'm going to work off, initially off of the first third, then I'm going to go two-thirds of the way on and finally I'm going to go off the edge as I go. I'm going to go up and back and then do the same as the two-thirds and the same at the third or at the full. Once I've done that, I'll look at the back of the chisel and see what I'm working with. I'm going on and off the stone like this so that I don't crown the back of the blade. If I create a slight cup, which I can by working off of this backside of the stone, that's much better than creating any kind of a crown. I can get rid of the cup. I can't get rid of a crown without a lot of work. As soon as I've gone through that full cycle, I'm then going to look at the back of the blade and see what I'm working with. What I see here is through the whole middle, a nice even polish, and then just a slight drop at the two outside edges. Rather than doing all that work on the 8,000 grit stone, I've got a 4,000 grit stone here that I'll slip into place and do the same process, but at a slightly coarse or grit. I don't want to go all the way down to 1,000 or 220 unless I absolutely have to. I actually would prefer going to sandpaper like the adhesive back stuff here rather than something like a 500 or 220 grit stone. So same operation on the stone. With this time, once I get through those cycles, I'm going to spin it around. I want the stone to stay as flat as it possibly can be. So by working broader surfaces, I'm able to work flatness into it. So now if I look at the back, I can see I'm still a little off there. So I'm going to lap my stone. And I could tell by the color swarf on the stone when I got it flat. I didn't need to put the pencil lines on there. As I work across here, you can see that gray color coming on. That's this metal being removed or this swarf. So when I work it with the diamond stone, as soon as I get rid of that gray color, I know it's flat. I didn't really have to flatten it at that stage, but I like to make sure that I have a consistent flat surface so I know what I'm working with. And it doesn't take much time to reflaten if you do it on a regular basis. So now I'm going to go back to the 8,000 grit stone and I still have the second side of that stone to work with. Here again, I'm just doing a check. I want to see how flat I got it off of the 4,000 grit. If you look at that in the light, you'll see a good even polish running all the way through the middle and about here. It flares out and I've got clean polish right out to all the edges. From here back, I've got a slate ghost line at the edge. I don't have to do any more work to this blade for it to function properly. And as I sharpen over time, I'm going to end up bringing that polish all the way out to the edges because every time I sharpen the blade, I'm going to be relapping at the back side on the 8,000 grit to get rid of any burr and to make sure I've got a good clean surface. So I can stop right here. If you want to take it further, keep working on the 4,000 grit stone, go through that same cycle and get to bring that polish out to the edges. But as long as you've got a good polish surface in that first inch or so, all the way out to the edges, then that's what you're using to cut and everything should work fine. So now we'll switch over to actually honing for sharpening. And now I'm going to introduce the 1,000 grit stone. I want to reflat my 8,000 grit. And it's always a good idea to double check the other stone if you haven't used it yet in that day. So I'm going to take that chisel and go to my stop board. Now when I sharpen with this style honing guide, which is a side clamping guide, it's the blade is too narrow to work in this upper jaw point. So I'm going to go down here in what I call the lower jaw. Clamp down onto the blade. And I've got a series of stops here that work in 5 degree increments from 25 up to 45 degrees. When I drop down into the lower jaw on this jig, it changes my angle by about 5 degrees. Sometimes it's a little less, maybe closer to 4 degrees. That means I'm not going to use the number that's on top of here to dictate what the angle is. I want a 30 degree bevel on the blade because this is an A2 chisel and we grind those at 30 degrees. So I'm going to work off of my 35 degree stop because it's about at that lower point, about 4 or 5 degrees less. So I run the blade right out to the stop, tighten down so it doesn't shift. And if I put a pencil or a marker on the bevel side of the chisel, I can see where I'm removing material and where I'm not. If I do one quick drag back, I can see where that polish is happening. And right off the bat, you can see I'm hitting at the heel of that bevel. Now I could make a stop here that's exactly 30 degrees with this fixture and not have to do what I'm going to do right now. But then I'd have more stops on here. I'm going to work with the same stop and just go to some sandpaper on my block here and change the angle on the blade. Just a few passes on a couple different grits of paper here. And you can see immediately what's going on. I've got a little bit of a skew on there so I want to tip the chisel just slightly. That straightens it out. I'm going to jump up a grit because I've established scratch pattern from the 220 paper. Now I'm working it 400. As soon as I eliminate all of the marker on the bevel side, I know I've changed the angle. I'm going to do a little bit of the edge here. I'm going to do a little bit of the edge here. I'm going to do a little bit of the edge here. I'm going to do a little bit of the edge here. A couple more strokes here. I can't quite feel a burr on the back, which is a good thing because I don't want to go all the way down there. I might run the risk of crowning off the edge. I'm going to do a little bit of the edge here. I can't quite feel a burr on the back, which is a good thing because I don't want to go all the way down there. I might run the risk of crowning off the tip of the blade. I'm going to just make sure there isn't any burr up. Then off the 1000 grit stone at that new angle, I'm going to work until I can feel a burr on the blade. What this means is I'm working at the 30 degree angle for more likely 29 degrees. I'm working the full bevel of the chisel. As soon as I can feel a burr up, I can then switch over to the 8000 grit. I want to ease off the burr, wipe off that little wheel, and this is when I'm going to introduce my secondary bevel. I've got a little eighth inch shim that I put in front of that stop that I worked off of before, and that's going to increase my angle by a couple degrees. Now when I hit the 8000 grit stone, you can see by the color on the stone that I'm getting an even polish all the way across the blade. There's now a secondary bevel right at the tip. That gives me a blade, a chisel, that's ready to use. I will hit it on the 8000 grit stone one more time just to get rid of any burr or trace of a burr that might be there. By doing that, I'm then also reestablishing the polish on the back of the chisel. I'll use that same process on any chisel that I'm working with, and that guarantees that I've got the polish that I need on the back and the cutting edge that I need on the bevel. Thank you for watching.