Skip to main content

I like steel, especially when they're sharpened. Scissors, knives, chisels, anything that cuts. It helps if they're well forged; even better if they're forged with old steel. Why old steel, you ask? Old steel are plain carbon steel, nothing added other than carbon. Modern tool makers tend to add chrome, vanadium, tungsten, molybdenum, etc... These makes an alloy that may increase corrosion resistance, hardness, toughness, edge retention, wear resistance, etc.... But my point is this: does it make a sharper edge? Can these additives make an edge that can be sharpened to a finer edge? The answer is no. What these elements do is simply make sharpening a little harder. (I must add that these alloys will hold a semi-sharp edge a longer time) But I like sharpening. The journey is almost as fun as the destination. After you are done sharpening a plain carbon steel edge, you are immediately rewarded with a tool that has a fine edge few tools can match. Sure, recent technological advances (cryogenic hardening, ice-tempered...)in heat-treatment has transformed our perception about High speed steels, A2, and such, but I STILL like to sharpen. I find it hard to resist cast steel or the Japanese White paper Shirogami forged tools. Try them, and tell me what you think.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SHARPENING WITH ARKANSAS STONES

What on earth are they? A user made box of assorted Arkansas stones. They are America's answer to: The Wales' Welsh Slate (Dragon's Tongue); The Scotch Tam O'Shanter; The English Charnley Forest stone; The Japanese Tenin Toishi; The German Thuringian Hone; The Chinese Guangzhou River bedrock; The Belgian Coticule; You get the idea. Local rocks that you use to sharpen mama's kitchen knives.   A collection of smaller pocket-sized Arkansas stones  In this entry, I will not try to tell you what you probably already know. What is the point of describing that oily rock you already have under your bench, in your drawer, in a can of kerosene? Note also, that the sharpening I describe here is best applied to woodworking in general. I am an amateur handtool woodworker. Sharpening a straight razor would be entirely another branch of science. I do not profess to know all there is to know about sharpening or Arkansas stones; I simply failed
26 comments
Read more

An Essential Pocket Knife : The Stockman

You're so right. I should be writing about Whittlers instead of Stockman knives. Afterall, this is a wood working blog. But do you whittle the whole day? Perhaps. Can you peel an apple with a whittler? Maybe, but not as well. What if you forgot the butter knife at a picnic, or you somehow need to spey or neuter an animal in an instant?.. (ok, I'm pulling your leg, but I'm referring to the ubiquitous spey blade in your stockman.) A stockman knife (Also called your Gandpa's EDC) will do all of the above with ease, and it will WHITTLE. My shallow pocket and minute brain says that Whittlers are for collectors. Try buying a Stag handled split-backsping whittler. They are not cheap. This is one of the forty stockmen I've purchased online. The other 39 are on their way. And yes, I have issues. The stockman bug maybe. Wait till my wife sees them: I like to imagine myself as a craftsman first, woodworker second. Now you see why I bought this brand. Looks so
15 comments
Read more

A Case for Chisels: Stanley 5000 series

“Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.” -John Ruskin. Substitute the word "books" with "blogs", and perhaps you should stop reading. I did my part and you are warned. No, I can't refund 4 minutes of your life. F or the most part of my woodworking life, I've kept my loose chisels in felt lined drawers. (I mean excess chisels purchased on impulse: Those of cast steel, those of boxwood, those octagonal London snobs, those ergo grips that promises an orgasm with each mortise, the socketed, the tanged, the handle-less tangs, the long paring ones, those curious crank-necks, the basic pig stickers, the vintage ferrule-less-...you know. I know. Some folks have too many hammers or smoothing planes or trammels. I'm a chisel guy. But the ones that are constantly on the move live in a canvas tool roll. I like the look of a chisel roll, except that the edges tend to slice the
Post a Comment
Read more