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A Sharpening Handbook: What Every Woodworker Needs to Know About Sharpening If there’s one thing to be said about woodworkers, it’s that we’re old school and prefer to pick up a book (or a [...]

Flattening the back of a spokeshave’s blade on sandpaper is a pain. The blade is so small that it’s hard to get a grip on it. A 1-1/2″ thick MDF block sized to fit my hand makes [...]

Chisel Sharpening Jig If you’ve had trouble grinding a straight edge on a chisel or plane iron, try using your disc sander. All you need is a guide that slides in your sander’s miter gauge slot [...]

These once-standard tools still have a place in the modern shop. Here's what you need to know about the use, care and keeping of drawknives and spokeshaves.

Here’s a fast, inexpensive way to keep your edge tools razor sharp. First, cut out a few 5″ x 3/4″ MDF discs.  Drill a 1/4″ hole in the center of each disc. Next, glue different [...]

An experiment uncovers cutting edges of the past. “How did they sharpen their tools back then?” I’ve asked this question myself and I have been asked the question, and I’ve never felt comfortable [...]

Here’s a simple way to sharpen chisels using a 3″ sanding drum mounted in an oscillating spindle sander or a drill press. Cut a squared-up 2×4 the length of the sander’s table. Cut a [...]

Additional reading: Check out Michael Dunbar’s Sharpening Method Here are some general thoughts and advice on sharpening, as well as answers to some frequently asked questions. Every shop [...]

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 [...]