[Music]
hey y'all I'm James right welcome to my
shop have you ever had that happen where
chisel falls off the bench or something
else happens to it and you get this
really bad nick and the chisel I want to
kind of go through sharpening today now
in my book there are two different types
of sharpening there is the Ono I've got
a nick in my blade and had to take off a
good amount of material and that's when
I take it to a cranked grinder or a
piece of sandpaper and we'll be covering
that then there's the regular sharpening
there's no Nick in it it's just gotten
dull and what do I want to do to
maintain the edge and keep it going so I
want to look at several things and give
you a quite a few little tips and ideas
and things that I do to make an edge
really nice and sharp okay so for the
initial grinding what I actually want to
do is take off a lot of material and
bring this edge into actual use because
if I feel this I feel there are all
sorts of Nicks on if I look up close
there's a whole bunch of Nick's in the
blade itself and I need to take off a
good amount of material in order to get
back to those Nick's and eliminate them
and there's two basic ways number one
you can do it with a grinder and here I
actually have a a hand grinder where I
can mount this to the table put a wheel
on here and write it and I want to use
this one of these days I've just never
gotten a wheel for it and never put it
up together
the other possibility and the one that I
generally use is I get a belt sander one
of these large belts and then I cut it
in half and I lay it out on the concrete
and I basically turn it into a grinder
so let's actually look at how I do this
so with this I basically just get down
on the floor now I'll needle on this
strip and I don't care if the concrete
perfectly flat or not I'm just trying to
get a general edge on this and just like
before I'm a full and hand out here just
hold it in place and then I'm going to
find that angle I'm not looking for
anything particularly ette and then I'm
going to slowly grind it down and I'm
using very similar body mechanics to how
I'm going to do it on the stones a
little bit and I'm just going to keep
going on this until I get a nice clean
edge all the way across and I'll find
that I have a burr that goes completely
across the chisel
the other thing I'm trying to do here is
I don't want to rock it too much I'm a
lot of people have a tendency to lower
the handle out here and then they get
back here the handles up high that's
what you end up doing is rounding the
end I'm trying to keep the handle the
same height off the ground the whole
time so as I come back my body is moving
and not a chisel as much it just takes a
couple minutes of doing that and you'll
get that really big heavy Birol the way
acrost and it's ready to take over to
these stones so now we've actually
ground it down and we've gotten the
shape that we're looking for we need to
actually hone this and bring this a
point into a really nice fine edge
because right now there's a big bird
that's sticking up on there and that
burr is going to cause a lot of issues
you don't want to you don't want to cut
with that so I've got here a set of
diamond plates these are diamond DMT
stones I'll leave a link to these down
below I really like these over a wet
stone they stay flat relatively and they
last for a long time you don't have to
worry about keeping them wet I just use
a simple glass cleaner to keep them
moist and they work really really well
so I have a an extra coarse a fine and
an extra fine in grits this ends up
being like a twelve hundred grit being
my finest stone and diamonds the grit
don't really translate so don't try and
say that these are a grit just call them
by their name and then I've gotten this
holder kind of from Paul Sellars but
I've also added on a strop over here so
that way I can keep the same movement
all the way through I kind of like that
that's set up so if you want to see the
video on how I made this I'll leave a
link to that down below as well I'm
gonna start with just a little bit
that's all I need
and then I'm gonna come over here to
this so I'm going to set the back here
and you can see I put two fingers from
my non-dominant hand here my pointer
finger here and then with my three
fingers back here I'm just going to lift
this up and so I'm not like holding this
I'm just holding I'm just letting it
rest on my fingers right here I'm gonna
lift it up until I find that bevel
I'm just going to grind me now I'm
trying to lock I'm trying to lock my
wrist my elbow my shoulder my hips
everything set my movement comes all the
way down in my ankles and so that my
upper body isn't doing this because if I
do this I'm going to be rounding the
head a lot more than I want and I'm not
really shooting for perfectly flat
either the radius comes from all the way
down to my ankles as opposed to my
elbows so it'll be a kind of a mix
between a flat and a radius handle and
I'm going to do this for a little bit
until I can see these striations on here
and I can tell that I I ground it with a
little bit of a round over this way so
that means I'm hitting heavily here in
the middle and not as much on the wings
so it's going to take a little bit
longer here at the stone until I get
till I see those scratch patterns
running all the way across you see how I
work from one side all the way over to
the other side trying to use the entire
width also sometimes it may be get
difficult to see your scratch pattern if
you're always grinding in the same
direction so sometimes it's useful to do
something like this so this takes a
little more skill and you can tell here
I'm using more of my arms than their
whole body so I like to do that for a
little bit and then come back to
straight but everyone's a little bit
different everyone likes something
different
getting close got a little bit more to
do on this tip over here and just coming
off with a grinder this is going to take
a little while this may take you know 4
5 10 minutes to really get down okay so
now I have I've got an even scratch
pattern running all the way across I
know that I have a nice clean edge and
what I want to do is I feel the back of
this and have an extremely heavy burr
still left over from that and I want to
get rid of that burr because if you
leave a heavy Burana it's gonna slowly
pull away the tip so I'm just gonna put
it on here flat and pull it back you
notice I'm not flattening the back of
this because I've flattened it in the
past so I'm not worrying about that as
much
then I'm just going to go back and forth
a little bit until that burr comes
really close to falling off here you can
see the really heavy bird thats still on
there and so that is basically where I
want to see you can see the scratch
pattern all the way across there
and you can see the scratch pattern all
the way across there and that's all I'm
really looking for in this so now that
I've gotten that pretty much ground down
I've got a really rough grit on here
I've gotten this to the shape I want it
to be now generally that's what I
consider grinding and that will you know
that if I were to take this bird off I
could probably carve with this okay not
great but from this point on we're
actually gonna be doing this sharpening
and honing and basically most of the
time when I'm working at the bench if
I'm just cleaning up an edge I'm just
going to do from here on out I rarely
use this bottom stone again so it's
basically gonna be the exact same
movement the exact same thing again that
I was doing on this stone except for I'm
going to cope here the medium and I'm
gonna put in a new set of scratch
patterns that I can watch and just like
before I'm going all the way across the
stone trying to use the whole thing
trying to lock my body so that my
movement comes from ankles and wipe it
off and I'll check the scratch pattern
that's looking pretty good so then I'm
going to do the back on this again now
if I'm just honing and pulling it off
from the stone I'm probably not gonna do
the back here but because I ground it
I'm going to do the back and then this
the back and this in the back and this
is just going to work that burr because
the burr is so stinkin big right now so
I'm just gonna keep working this until I
get a really nice clean scratch pattern
all the way across this should only take
another minute or so if I'm just doing
this freshening it up it should only
take you know 3040 strokes in there I've
got a really nice clean scratch pattern
all the way across
next thing move it on to the next stone
and we're gonna do the exact same thing
over again you hear how the pitch of the
stone actually gets higher from one
stone to the next and we're just going
to do the exact same thing here grind it
down until we get a nice clean scratch
pattern in this case I'm still going to
do the back I'm gonna do the back a
little bit more on here cuz this the
final stone this is the polish I want on
that back yeah that's looking good I
almost have all the scratch patter in
there a little bit more there we go okay
I've got that scratch pattern all the
way across from all three stones and now
all I see is what I have left from the
last stone so now it's actually time to
go on the strop now the strop here this
is horse but leather there's a bunch of
different places we can get it I'll try
and leave a link to that below you can
use any leather you want and just look
for a really stiff heavy hard leather
I'm going to keep the rough side up for
mine and then I have a honing compound
on here this is just a chrome oxide you
can use a zinc oxide or just about any
buffing compound on there I'm gonna
start up here and I'm just going to pull
back on this sometimes faster sometimes
slower depends on what to feel like 3040
strokes or so not looking for anything
special just polishing out that edge and
I start to get that mirror finish that I
like and then I'm going to pull on the
back here now when I'm just cleaning up
an edge I am going to have a small bird
that's gonna come off now because I lost
that bird earlier I'm not gonna get that
tiny little wire edge and so when I do
the back and the front I'll just kind of
work it on here on the strop a few times
until that burr fall off in this case
I've got this really nice highly
polished edge all the way across and
that about does it the only thing you
have to do is actually to test it and
make sure you are where you want to be
now there's a bunch of ways of testing a
lot of people like to use their thumb
now and I like to you know peel off
these tiny little curls some people like
to use paper because I'm on camera one
of the best ways that I can actually
tell people how to do it is to shave
hair and what you want to do is be
careful not to cut your arm um but if
you shave the hair if it is really truly
sharp it will hit every single hair it
touches on the very first pass then you
won't have to come back to clean up
anything if it's somewhat sharp but
still need some more work you're going
to see a bunch of hairs that are still
left the more hairs you see left the
more work you still have to do so yes a
dull blade can still cut hair but a
truly sharp blade is going to cut every
single hair on the first pass let me
show you what that looks like this is
called a hand tool pattern baldness you
see how one pass cuts that every here
there they can come down a little
farther and cut another pass and then
you get all that beautiful hair
yep it's sharp so there you have it
a quick tutorial on how to sharpen clean
up an edge and really this is something
that anyone can do and now you can go
and get a jig and make it simpler and
some people really like that but for
chisels i really suggest people learn to
do it freehand yes it's going to take a
little bit practice it's something you
have to learn but for a chisel it's
actually not that difficult once you
learn the body mechanics and you learn
to move with your ankles and not with
your upper body you'll get a really nice
clean edge fairly quickly and once you
learn to do it the chisel then you can
start to learn to do freehand with other
things with your plane blades and other
items that are around the shop I really
hope that you have enjoyed this this is
a great thing to learn and once you get
a truly sharp edge the world just
suddenly opens up and it's kind of cool
what you can get woodworking is all
about having a really clean cane edge
and until you get that you're gonna be
running into problems so learning to
sharpen really is the very first hand
tool skill I hope you'll like that if
you did I want to say an incredible
thank you to the patrons on patreon you
guys really are the reason why I can put
out videos like this also if you want to
subscribe you can do that over here if
you wanna see some behind the scenes
footage
other things like that you can do it
right over here and until next time have
a wonderful day