 The stomping up sticks an area of woodworking streets slang defines scary sharp as using sandpaper honing films to create a toolhead sharpened off to cut paper, shave body hair, and impress people with micro thin wood shavings. But that doesn't mean it's only for beginners. Paper professionals prefer this method because it's fast, clean, and disposable. All you need is the right type of sandpaper, a good flat surface, and a weight-hold blade. Let's start with the paper. The most common kind of hardware store or sandpaper is Garnet, which is a naturally occurring mineral that's also made into expensive jewelry. But before you start rubbing your chisels on your wife's ring, you should know that Garnets aren't very hard. It can translate that into sandpaper ease, and you have dollar store-grade sandpaper that won't cut tool steel very well at all. Another easy to find sandpaper is the black wet or dry stuff. This is silicon carbide, and it's attractive for sharpening because it's actually designed for metal. Don't believe me? You could try it out yourself. Take it over to your neighbor's house tonight and use it on the twitter of his car. You'll find that it works like a charm because this stuff is commonly used in all the body work. You know what a cut tool steel? The only question is how well? While all those teeny tiny little particles of silicon carbide are extremely hard, they're also very fragile. This can be a good thing because when those bits start to wear out, they actually just fracture, leaving jagged edges behind, which can continue cutting. But that can also be a bad thing because they're so brittle that they just keep breaking up. And before long, you're left with nothing but dusty paper. Which brings us to aluminum oxide, or as our British viewers would call it, aluminum oxide. It's not as hard as silicon carbide, but it's still hard enough to sharpen tool steel. It also isn't as fragile as silicon carbide, which means the particles won't crumble to dust, but because they don't break apart and expose new cutting edges, the particles tend to wear smooth and stop cutting over time. All sanding belts are aluminum oxide. And while they suffer from the same deficiencies as regular aluminum oxide paper, the cloth backing makes it more durable. Some belts are made from zirconium oxide, which cuts faster and lasts longer. But they're expensive and pretty hard to find around my place. So what's the bottom line? Garnet sandpaper? No good. Silicon carbide cuts faster, but aluminum carbide lasts longer. To make your decision, you'll have to weigh the cost versus the speed versus availability around you versus your personal preference versus how much you really want to learn about sandpaper in the first place. Unfortunately, not all hardware store belts and papers are clearly marked. And some brands even add pretty colors to the grits you can't tell just by looking at. So even if you know what kind of paper you want, you may have to just do some trial and error to see just what brands work best for you. And don't be fooled by the bargain brands. Even if it says it's made from the stuff you're looking for, many sandpaper sold in hardware stores are called open surface. What that means is more paper and less grit. Paper that's made specifically for metal, that's your best bet. Now let's talk plates. I have a large collection, including several limited edition Elvis plates that make up my retirement fund. Man, I hope he's really dead. But the most useful are the flat surfaces I attach my sandpaper to for sharpening. Sometimes surface plates that you can get in three, four inches thick at woodworking suppliers that cost like a billion dollars are made out of granite. But you can get a granite floor tile for like five bucks. And if you grab a straight edge to check them before you buy, you can easily find one that's super flat. If you're really on a budget, the cheapest solution is just to put the paper right on your cast iron table saw or a join your bed, something like that. The downside of course is the sharpening can be pretty messy. You've got adhesive sprays, water for lubrication. Sometimes I spill my cold one. You don't want that stuff on top of your table saw. That brings us to my favorite option, the Rockler Plate Glass Sharpening System. It includes a high quality honing jig, some high quality adhesive back to sandpaper, and a high quality tempered glass plate. It all starts with the jig. It's heavy duty, easy to adjust, and fits chisels and handplains all the way up to over two inches wide at any bevel you want. This jig alone is perhaps the best selling style in all the woodworking world. Next comes the sandpaper. This set comes with four grits, a thick, durable, silicon carbide strips. You get two strips of each grit, starting with an aggressive 220 and going up to a fine 600. They're big, four inch wide pieces with a durable adhesive backing, so they aren't going to go anywhere. What you stick them on is the key to the whole set, and it's a thick, heavy, ultra flat piece of tempered glass. You can put all the four grits at the same time using both sides, so you don't wear out your paper backing by peeling it off and resticking it back on when you want to switch grits. There's these little silicone feet that stick to the bottom of the plate glass to keep it from sliding around on your bench, and this thing is going to stay flat and clean up easy forever. That brings us to a sticky issue. How do you attach the paper to the flat surface? The easiest way is to just use pressure-sensitive adhesive-backed sandpaper and either pre-cut strips or on a roll from woodworking suppliers. It's a little more expensive, but it's by far the most convenient way to go. Another option is to use spray adhesive. This works well because it allows you to stick down any kind of sandpaper. The downside, of course, is it's going to leave a sticky film when you peel it off. It's not a biggie at first, but as it builds up, it's going to make bumps underneath your paper, and that is intolerable. If you go this route, you'll have to break out the goo gum once in a while. I've even seen some smart woodworkers put a coast of paste wax on their plate. If you buff it up really nice, it'll create a long-lasting barrier between the plate and the adhesive. Take that tip to the bank. Spray adhesive is cheaper than self-adhesive sandpaper, but water is free unless you buy that fancy clean water in the bottles. You can spritz down your plate and the water will suck that sandpaper onto the surface with a little thing called science. The sandpaper is going to move around a little bit, but what do you want for free? Of course, I wouldn't recommend doing this on your cast iron table saw top. So now you've got your paper and your plate. It's time to put them to work. I'm going to go grab a dull chisel and I'll be right back. So now that we've covered the options for this scary sharp system, I'm going to time myself while I take a old chisel through the grits so we can see just how long it takes and how sharp it gets with this method. First, since it's a damaged blade, we'll have to do a little repair work. Now, that's only something you'll have to do once in a while. Most of the time, you'll just be sharpening, which is where we'll pick up from here. Now, would workers smarter than I am and more experience say that you can stop at 600 grit for a lot of blades, especially bench chisels and tools you're going to pound on. Plains and pairing chisels should go higher and 2000 makes an extremely sharp edge. Others like to go a lot higher than that, especially on fine tools like smoothing planes. We'll get into microfilms and strapping and stuff to get those really fine edges in a future episode. But the point is, it passes the thumbnail test, which means it won't slide across the thumbnail without digging in, even with the least amount of pressure. And it passes the end green test, which means that it cuts smoothly across soft wood fibers without tearing. So we've covered the scary sharp system. Personally, I didn't find the scary at all.