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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 [...]

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 [...]