Chisel or technique?

[bridger]

And if the nail is a masonry nail it will be decent enough steel to make a very good tool indeed.

That's an extremely good point.

BugBear

I really should read a thread through to it's end before replying....

 

[Peter Sefton]

Well done, OP. Result. Now you will get nice clean cuts.

You have one major problem - you are in serious danger of catching the sharpening bug. This is a slippery slope of obsession for many. I actually know one guy who has some chisels that he does not use in case he damages them.

I think it's always good to remember sharpening is a means to an end, making is what it is all about, but you need sharp kit to produce good work.

Cheers Peter

 

[bridger]

OP- did upping your sharpening game solve the fuzzy sapelle problem?

 

[MarkDennehy]

I swear there are NO resources out there which would guide a complete newbie to chisels about how to sharpen them in clear language without knowing all the terminology and without having a previous experience. Same for sharpening Plane blades...

Actually... Richard McGuire's latest series on sharpening has me really wishing he'd done it about a year ago when I was trying to figure out how to sharpen anything other than a pencil, it was exactly what I needed to see back then. Not because it's terribly thorough, but because it's the exact opposite - it tells you enough to sharpen a chisel without tripping over six hundred pages of fine detail on sharpening. Worth the few quid, IMHO.
And also, there's a Frank Klausz video that gets across the same kind of just-get-on-with-it approach (though for my money Richard does it better) here:

[youtube]mlNkSR_Mk0I[/youtube]

(Fast forward to 12:30 for the sharpening, but the rest is really worth watching too).

Also, if your head works like mine, go onto ebay and buy a chisel for less than £2 (or a car boot sale or whatever) and just learn to sharpen on that (so don't buy a nice one). That way you won't feel like you have to get it right lest you ruin a good tool. Dunno why, but doing that helped me enormously.

 

[bugbear]

Well done, OP. Result. Now you will get nice clean cuts.

You have one major problem - you are in serious danger of catching the sharpening bug. This is a slippery slope of obsession for many. I actually know one guy who has some chisels that he does not use in case he damages them.

I think it's always good to remember sharpening is a means to an end, making is what it is all about, but you need sharp kit to produce good work.

Cheers Peter

Agreed - cutting a joint at all with a blunt chisel, let alone accurately, is a skill I don't have.

(same with kitchen knives - you can't slice accurately or finely with a blunt knife)

BugBear

 

[ScaredyCat]

OP- did upping your sharpening game solve the fuzzy sapelle problem?

I think the answer is a resounding yes (any dodginess is due to lack of talent, not the tool)