hey guys welcome to woodwork life I'm
Rick I'm getting a lot of sizzles ready
for a chisel shootout that I have coming
up next week comparing some of the most
popular chisel brands from Aldi to
Veritas to Leigh Neilson all over the
place well I'm getting all these chisels
ready I figure it's as good a time as
any to show you my system for how I get
a chisel as sharp as it can be
once it's sharp enough to shave pretty
much sharp enough to do anything else
you want to do with it
before we get sharpening let's take a
contender this is a inch and a half
Harbor Freight chisel they're prepared a
little bit on the back but it's dull and
chipped and if I his fair share of knots
and nails the edge is rolled over and
really not sharp at all so let's get
started let me tear the back the first
part is going to be flat this one was
already prepared a little bit the
easiest you have a big hollow in here
you don't have to flatten the entire
back of a chisel but at least half as
deep is whatever the thickest stock that
you're going to work with is in my case
is about two inches so I'm going to go
an inch and a half that would have some
extra overkill in case I need it this
sharpening jig used to be my go-to
sharpening jig until I checked it in
kind of that doesn't actually register
the chisel square it's a little nitpicky
but if you're trying to get the sharpest
edge possible you definitely want that
edge to be square to the blade as you
can get it I'll take the back of my
chisels from coarse to fine to extra
fine - extra extra fine that way you get
a nice progression to the stones these
are DMT stones and they are guaranteed
from the factory remains flat they're
also made in the USA which i think is a
really cool feature they I like to put
some furniture anti-skid pads on the
bottom that way they'll just stay nice
and secure on your bench and you can
also use them from all different
directions
at this point the back of the chisel is
really as flat as it needs to be but I'm
going to go ahead and keep going until I
get rid of that little belly in there
but definitely I'm able get that hollow
all the way out without really putting
taking too much steel off not really
going to affect the cut so I'm going to
stick with that and leave it and go
ahead and go to the rest of the stones
you really just repeat the same steps as
you progressed to the grit so I'm gonna
skip through a little bit us a little
bit quicker really complimentary so this
is a very special stone this is emt's
4000 grit diamonds shown now this is
really the last set of stone grits
that's really going to actually be doing
cutting on a blade matting is really
important when you're cutting on the
blade that your stone is flat now the
nice thing about the DMT 4000 grit stone
as opposed to a water stone you don't
have to flatten it all the time remember
that sharp is really just two flat faces
meaning an infinitely small edge so the
flatter you can keep both faces the
sharper the blades going to be at this
point the blade is so flat that it
really just wants a suction cup down to
the stone so I shorten my movements up
you'll see a lot of Japanese sharpeners
doing this too when they're on their
high high grit stone is just the small
controlled motion of the cross stone
it's also a good way to keep some of
your softer stone splat just evenly
distribute the wear see we're just
barely cutting at this point doing our
last cut before we start honing
and there you have it there's our dead
flat back face
well of course other than the hollow but
that's not really going to affect our
cutting so now that we have the back
into the flat it's time to set our
primary level in this case I'm actually
going to do the entire bevel with this
softer steel you may want to do a thirty
degree bevel just handle most woods but
with this inch and a half I primarily
use it for pairing so I'm going to go
ahead and sharpen at 25 degrees ever
since finding out that my my previous
sharpening jig wasn't actually squared
couldn't give me a consistent edge I
upgraded to a ver tapas chisel honing
guide the nice thing with this is that
it's dead square and dead centered and
it also has this clever little locking
gauge block that will help you to set
consistent angle to be sharpened so it's
got a little dovetailed mechanism here
that locks into the front lip just like
so you want to tighten that down
and then I've got it set in one of these
plot one of these the tent detent slots
here so you can see in the yellow
section which I've got in a yellow
setting I can go unscrew this thumb
screw and I can go to 30 degrees 20
degrees 15 degrees
all these different stops so that I can
set once you get that set you just take
your chisel can you slide it right in
there up to the stop then you'll just
tighten it down and you're locked into
the perfect 25 degrees every time you
just remove the dovetail guide slides
off the edge and then go to your stones
so you don't always have to use a
hunting guide you can do a pretty nice
secondary bevel with just just by hand
but I find that using a honing guide
gives me a nice consistent angle so I
can find an angle I like and just stick
with it so you pray someplace all the
pressure at the front edge of the blade
to keep it down and then just slide it
back and forth on your stone
do your best to use as much of your
stone as possible we just keep working
and working so we get just polished
piece all the way down that little bevel
edge just gets just a little bit further
to go
[Music]
so once you get the bevel sufficiently
flat in this case I've got a bird going
all the way across you can either choose
to hone it like this or what I like to
do and it's cool feature with this
little jig is that you can actually take
this little dial here and rotate it 180
degrees so there's point in the six
o'clock position here it's going to put
an extra three degrees of bevel on to
the front edge of this blade that ad
gives you a little more resilient blade
for cutting hardwoods and things like
that just really makes your edge hold up
a little bit especially with the cheap
steel like you want to like the steel on
the fiber Freight it's going to make
that edge stay sharper for longer so
just like the back bevel we just keep
progressing from coarse to fine to extra
fine to extra extra fine for now we're
going to leave that secondary bevel
setting down so that we're just sharpen
that secondary bevel so we should get
through these next couple steps very
quickly
and all you're doing at each of these
stones is just removing the marks from
the previous stone and slowly refining
that edge down to it has an infinitely
narrow profile now finally to that
special extra extra fine stone we're
still just working on that secondary
bevel to get that final polish
all right now that's plenty sharp you
can do almost any task with that blade
all we have to do now is just clear off
the burr on the back I like to do this
on the 4000 grit stone you just do the
same we flattened it hang it off the
edge of your bench just rather you have
your primary secondary bevel ready to go
and get the back all flat see it's
raised you most wish but here comes fun
part the 4000 grit diamond stone really
only goes down to a three micron
particle so it's sharp but it's not home
yet and we like to get our tools extra
sharp here so I think it's my little jig
this is a 4 inch by 36 inch belt sander
with a 6 inch disc sander and what I've
done is I've taken 5/8 inch leather
discs and cut and drilled a hole into
the center of this tap it for a screw
and now with to these discs together I
have myself a nice lattice it's kind of
similar to the way the work sharks just
work sharp system works but this sander
on sale 50 bucks and these leather discs
49 cents
now you can see that blades polished to
a mirror edge sharp as anything good for
really any task let's put it through its
paces
[Applause]
so that's how I keep my chisel sharp the
MTU is good enough to give me these five
fine grit diamond stones to give out to
five lucky winners or whatever go ahead
and drop a comment below and I'll take
five random comments and send you guys
some of these so keep an eye out in your
email this is a really easy way to keep
a sharp chisel the nice thing about that
standard trick is you can also you just
maintain an edge it is your first time
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good one remember to keep your tools
sharp and keep your mind even sharper
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