Academy Notes and Tips
JULY/AUG
2003
Volume 46/Issue 4
IN
THIS ISSUE
Project
Articles
•
Knock-Down & Store-Away Table
• Home Shop Workbench
• Rolling Pin & Dried Flower Vase
DEPARTMENTS
•
Ask Smitty
• Owner’s Gallery
• Letters from Owners
Academy Notes
Clean
Cuts - Pt. 1
Service Pointers
Bandsaw
Service Pointers
Safety Tips
Hoirzontal Boring Safety
What's
New
Shopsmith
and Lowe's Team Up
EDUCATION
• Find
A Shopsmith Woodworking Academy Near You
• National
Woodworking Academy in Dayton, OH
ONLINE
CATALOGS
• Online Accessory Catalog
• Request
Printed Accessory Catalog
• Online
Replacement Parts Catalog
MARK
V INFORMATION
• Find
A Shopsmith
MARK V Demo Near You
• Request
MARK V Information Package
LINKS
•
Links Worth Visiting
•
Free Woodworking
Tips
FEEDBACK
Contacting
Shopsmith
Copyright
2003.
Shopsmith, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
From
the Shopsmith Woodworking Academy
Clean Cuts
-- Part 1
Printer
friendly PDF copy of article
Here are some simple tips:
- All stones (except diamond & ceramic stones) get dips and bumps in their surfaces. Using them evenly helps to delay this problem...but not forever. It's a good idea to periodically re-flatten your stones by rubbing them in a circular motion over a piece of 1/4" plate glass or Formica countertop covered with a slurry of loose grit such as carborundum powder.
- Adjustable Honing Guides can make easy work of maintaining bevel angles when sharpening chisels and plane irons.
- If you're looking for a nice strop to finish-up a razor-sharp edge on your tools, a leather shop or shoe repair service will sell you a good, thick piece of leather for this purpose. To perform this stropping operation, pull the bevel across the smooth side of the leather...unlike the pushing action used with a benchstone.
- If your silicon-carbide stone becomes clogged with swarf, it will no longer cut steel. Rescue it with an overnight bath in kerosene, followed by a brisk rubbing with a stiff brush.
- You can always tell a dedicated woodworker by how little hair they have on the backs of their forearms and hands. That's the favorite place for testing the edges of tools. If it shaves hair, it's sharp!
The methods used by woodworkers for sharpening their tools is a personal statement, as unique as the way they sign their names. Every one of them has strong feelings about the best way. Ask them about their opinions of these best ways and you'll learn a lot.
Coming up in the Sept/Oct issue -- PART TWO - Sharpening Lathe Chisels
