Archives

Michael Dunbar distills three decades of sharpening into a simple, inexpensive and do-able system. This is a subversive article. Woodworking gurus and companies that make expensive sharpening [...]

Diamond stones are the bedrock of my sharpening routine. I use them as my main abrader throughout my sharpening/honing sessions because they preserve their flatness and keep their hard particles [...]

Bringing an old hand plane back to life is simple to do, and will yield a top-not tool. When I build a project, I use a variety of “fancy” tools (readers’ words, not mine). Lie-Nielsen, [...]

A 12-step program for regrowing forearm hair. I head through the main doors, down the stairs to the basement, arriving at the third door on the right. Like everyone else, I grab a cup of coffee [...]

Chisels don’t wait to get dull until you’ve finished a job—do they? The trick is to keep them sharp while you’re working. Rather than pull out my stones to renew an edge, I keep a piece of MDF [...]

To conclude this series of entries about lapping/flattening the soles of metal planes (read them here #1, #2, #3, #4), I wish to share some information about the precision tools I use.  The [...]

Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. The #8 Record plane I bought a few years ago was the most prominent, heaviest, and the longest plane I have ever lapped; it was also a plane for which …

In previous entries, I explained how to lap short-bodied planes using diamond stones and sandpaper rolls (click to read parts 1 and 2.).  This entry is dedicated to lapping larger planes and [...]

Last week I talked about the diamond stone technique for lapping the soles of small block planes. This week I will talk about another popular method – using abrasive tapes over a flat [...]

Much has been written about the importance of a true and flat plane sole as a key to achieving optimal results during planning. Premium planes come with a very flat sole, do not need any [...]

One of the strops that I tried in my efforts to find a high-quality yet economic tool was the Lee Valley strop. (Read part 1 of the story here). This strop is made of plywood and comes with [...]

I use strops all the time to hone our many carving knives, our plane, and chisel blades, not to mention my pocket knife. Strops maintain our edges and gift them with pinnacle sharpness that lasts [...]