Haha, so true. From now on every part of this thread will be uncontrollably read in my head in those voices.
Haha, so true. From now on every part of this thread will be uncontrollably read in my head in those voices.
The bigger waste of time is the geeking out of the ruler trick. This is because after considerable time has been spent geeking t out,much less time is needed to toss peanuts at it!!
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
I only use it because it speeds up the sharpening so I can get back to work faster.
An edge is an edge is an edge. Only the wood knows for sure!
You know, this may be one of the few corners of the Interwebs where the audience is old enough to get that joke. If I said that at work I'd get blank stares (and I'd get laughed out of the building if I referenced the "Shakespearean fan fiction" characters that inspired Statler and Waldorf).
Hey, it takes a LOT of effort to maintain "serious woodworker" cred by continuously telling everybody else they're doing it wrong!
Seriously, George and Warren are right. This is a side-discussion of a side-discussion. Nothing to see here unless you're a geek.
Last edited by Patrick Chase; 11-21-2016 at 12:44 PM.
Those backs are very nicely done Patrick!
WRT the ruler trick; I've used it an ultimately done away with it, I find it easier to remove the burr without it, given a flat back.
I don't grind my bevels and that is why I find it to be frustrating. 1000~ will take away the wear, but when using the ruler trick I would need to grind heavily with a very rough stone first.
One more edit:
I like to search for very tiny imperfections in the edge by looking for spots that reflect light, I find the tiny microbevel to disturb my ability to do that.
Last edited by Brian Holcombe; 11-21-2016 at 1:46 PM.
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
After 12-14 hours of woodwork slipping is an honest concern, lol.
I once ran a steel straight edge over one of my blades at the end of a day like that.....which then made the day even longer still.
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
Patrick; just because some of the feedback has questioned the merit of using a back bevel (ruler trick) does not make that discussion a waste of space. Like everything else said within an open forum, you listen to the pro's and cons of what's been said , and then make a valued judgement based on whether to modify or continue using your existing technique. Just because George makes a statement suggesting the topic is a waste of space, doesn't mean the rest of the members have to scurry away like hermit crabs wanting to bury themselves in the sand.
Stewie;
I see how what I wrote is a bit ambiguous, I meant I would need to grind away more of the main bevel to remove the back bevel when resharpening the blade. Normally I just remove the wear bevel.
Bumbling forward into the unknown.
Thanks Brian; I understand your approach now.
Stewie;
Normand; that's a worthwhile topic that deserves its own separate discussion as to the reasons why this seems to have been a common practice within older stones. I am not overly confident there is 1 single defining answer. As mentioned earlier, an out of flat stone may not necessarily pose a problem with the bevel side of the blade, but what steps were taken to address the flat side of the blade is a little unclear. Its quite possible that little attention was given to the back of the blade in those earlier days, suggesting the practice of prematurely removing the burred edge was a more favoured practice. I know in my fathers case, he tended to work the bevel side only with his combination stone, and relied on removing the burred edge by folding it back and forth against the leg of his Bib & Brace Overalls. http://www.hardyakka.com.au/bib-brac...verall-81.html
Stewie;
Last edited by Stewie Simpson; 11-21-2016 at 9:20 PM.
Stewie,
About a year ago, with a friend, we bought a large lot of tools from an estate. The man that had died didn't use his hand tools collection and they were bought from all over the place on a 30 years time frame and sharpened by many different woodworkers (as I have been told by his son).
In this lot there was ~100 planes. None of those blades had a flattened back, none.
Oh and we bought 13 router planes with blades as well.
Normand