Alf
Established Member
This is the first in a series of videos/DVDs made in collaboration with the Lie-Nielsen Toolworks showing David Charlesworth’s personal technique for sharpening plane irons. Different aspects of preparing and honing the blade and chip breaker (cap iron) are covered in eight sections, largely filmed in a one-to-one workshop setting, but with some segments filmed at an open house presentation held at L-N’s Maine workshops last year. I’ll go through each section to give you an idea of what it covers:
Keeping Waterstones Flat
Starting with a brief outline of the important aspects of a plane that need to be addressed, DC then explains what stones he uses, an alternative set up using the stones sold by L-N…
and a brief (very brief) dismissal of diamond stones, oil stones and ceramic stones. Then why and how to flatten waterstones using either a diamond stone or wet’n’dry on float glass.
Preparing the back of your blade
Why a flat back is important and how to achieve it using two distinct types of stroke on the stone. Also a good example of how the stone will wear, and just how frighteningly fast they do get out of flat.
The Ruler Trick
Tommy Cooper had his fez, Zorro his saw cut “Z”, and DC has the Ruler Trick; why he does it and how.
Honing the bevel
How DC goes about honing a straight bevel, using an Eclipse-style honing guide, raising a wire edge and what grinding and honing angles he uses.
Preparing a curved blade
Just as you’ve got a square edge sorted, why you need a curved or cambered blade. How to form an accurate one on your iron using strips of card (I kid you not) and the advantages of a narrow wheel on the honing guide.
Re-sharpening a curved blade
The importance of not going too long between sharpening, and how to re-hone that cambered blade in 4 minutes
Fettling the chip breaker
A frequently neglected part of the blade assembly <discreetly pushes her own sorry cap irons under the carpet with her foot…
>; why it needs to be tuned and how to go about doing it.
Assembly of the blade and chip breaker and setting up the plane
Seating the blade/cap iron assembly firmly in the plane, setting the lateral adjustment, depth adjustment and avoiding backlash. Then a few “show-off” shavings to finish.
Well if ever a product lived up the “does exactly what it says on the box” slogan, this is it. I found this a very restful video/DVD to watch, I must confess. The presentation is clear, calm and unhurried. You get to see everything you need to see, although there was some bitty cutting at some points which was a little distracting. Sound quality is good; a nice touch to be able to actually hear when the iron was satisfactorily adjusted, for instance. One or two alarm bells rang early on when the brand of waterstones Lie-Nielsen stock, rather than the ones DC uses, were rather clumsily plugged. I wondered if I was going to be in for a 75 minute L-N commercial, but I needn’t have feared. Apart from a few planes loitering here and there looking gorgeous, there’s nothing to upset a L-N challenged viewer. In fact DC’s Stanley #5.5 and Hock blade got plenty of air time, which was nice.
This is strictly a masterclass on how DC sharpens a blade and tunes a cap iron; if you’re looking for alternative methods, pros and cons of various sharpening media etc, look elsewhere. That’s okay, as it doesn’t claim to be anything else, but I did come away with rather more questions about DC’s method than I’d expected. That’s probably because I tend to like knowing the reasoning behind doing something one way rather than another, rather than just unquestioningly following instruction. This is definitely what I’d call the “our’s not to reason why” approach to learning a new technique. Disappointingly there was a lack of anything on back bevels, which I’d hoped for as DC is such an advocate of them. For one thing the difference between them and the result of the Ruler Trick seems to cause considerable confusion, and it would have been nice to have that cleared up.
Having a skilled craftsman take you step-by-step through a technique has obvious benefits over an article; it really fixes it in your mind when you’ve seen it done, you don’t inadvertently put your own emphasis on one aspect or miss something else out altogether, and so forth. I was amused to note one unexpected result of seeing what DC did, as opposed to just hearing/reading it, was the number of strokes taken on the stone at each stage was regularly two or three times as many as he said.
And talking of reading, if you’ve had your head in a bucket for the last few years and missed all DC’s articles on the subject, worry not. The whole process is there on the disc, and I don’t believe you’d be at any disadvantage.
A newbie of the greenest sort watched some of this DVD with me, and her comment is perhaps as good a summing up as any; “You just know if you do exactly what he says you’ll have a sharp edge at the end ”. ‘Nuff said.
David Charlesworth Hand Tool Techniques. Part 1: Plane Sharpening DVD 75mins £19.95.
Video also available, both direct from David Charlesworth and Lie-Nielsen
Very many thanks to David for sending me this DVD to review. Stay tuned, a review of part two will follow in due course.
Keeping Waterstones Flat
Starting with a brief outline of the important aspects of a plane that need to be addressed, DC then explains what stones he uses, an alternative set up using the stones sold by L-N…
Preparing the back of your blade
Why a flat back is important and how to achieve it using two distinct types of stroke on the stone. Also a good example of how the stone will wear, and just how frighteningly fast they do get out of flat.
The Ruler Trick
Tommy Cooper had his fez, Zorro his saw cut “Z”, and DC has the Ruler Trick; why he does it and how.
Honing the bevel
How DC goes about honing a straight bevel, using an Eclipse-style honing guide, raising a wire edge and what grinding and honing angles he uses.
Preparing a curved blade
Just as you’ve got a square edge sorted, why you need a curved or cambered blade. How to form an accurate one on your iron using strips of card (I kid you not) and the advantages of a narrow wheel on the honing guide.
Re-sharpening a curved blade
The importance of not going too long between sharpening, and how to re-hone that cambered blade in 4 minutes
Fettling the chip breaker
A frequently neglected part of the blade assembly <discreetly pushes her own sorry cap irons under the carpet with her foot…
Assembly of the blade and chip breaker and setting up the plane
Seating the blade/cap iron assembly firmly in the plane, setting the lateral adjustment, depth adjustment and avoiding backlash. Then a few “show-off” shavings to finish.
Well if ever a product lived up the “does exactly what it says on the box” slogan, this is it. I found this a very restful video/DVD to watch, I must confess. The presentation is clear, calm and unhurried. You get to see everything you need to see, although there was some bitty cutting at some points which was a little distracting. Sound quality is good; a nice touch to be able to actually hear when the iron was satisfactorily adjusted, for instance. One or two alarm bells rang early on when the brand of waterstones Lie-Nielsen stock, rather than the ones DC uses, were rather clumsily plugged. I wondered if I was going to be in for a 75 minute L-N commercial, but I needn’t have feared. Apart from a few planes loitering here and there looking gorgeous, there’s nothing to upset a L-N challenged viewer. In fact DC’s Stanley #5.5 and Hock blade got plenty of air time, which was nice.
This is strictly a masterclass on how DC sharpens a blade and tunes a cap iron; if you’re looking for alternative methods, pros and cons of various sharpening media etc, look elsewhere. That’s okay, as it doesn’t claim to be anything else, but I did come away with rather more questions about DC’s method than I’d expected. That’s probably because I tend to like knowing the reasoning behind doing something one way rather than another, rather than just unquestioningly following instruction. This is definitely what I’d call the “our’s not to reason why” approach to learning a new technique. Disappointingly there was a lack of anything on back bevels, which I’d hoped for as DC is such an advocate of them. For one thing the difference between them and the result of the Ruler Trick seems to cause considerable confusion, and it would have been nice to have that cleared up.
Having a skilled craftsman take you step-by-step through a technique has obvious benefits over an article; it really fixes it in your mind when you’ve seen it done, you don’t inadvertently put your own emphasis on one aspect or miss something else out altogether, and so forth. I was amused to note one unexpected result of seeing what DC did, as opposed to just hearing/reading it, was the number of strokes taken on the stone at each stage was regularly two or three times as many as he said.
A newbie of the greenest sort watched some of this DVD with me, and her comment is perhaps as good a summing up as any; “You just know if you do exactly what he says you’ll have a sharp edge at the end ”. ‘Nuff said.
David Charlesworth Hand Tool Techniques. Part 1: Plane Sharpening DVD 75mins £19.95.
Video also available, both direct from David Charlesworth and Lie-Nielsen
Very many thanks to David for sending me this DVD to review. Stay tuned, a review of part two will follow in due course.
