Work Sharp Sharpening System - Manual (Page 2)

They are the ones who talk about a near
Zen-like experience from getting their
tools “scary sharp,” and they seem to be
willing to go to any end or spend any
amount of money just to get something
sharper than they ever could before.
I always pause a bit before answering
questions about how I sharpen to make
sure I really understand which type of
person I am talking with. I’m one who
uses tools to build fine furniture. Tools for
me are just that, tools. They are the
means to the end, not the end in and of
itself. A sharp
hand cutting
tool is a must
to do fine work
and to do it ef-
ficiently enough
to keep my
prices afford-
able. I sharpen
because I need
sharp tools.
Since I never
really know the
questioner’s
intent, I have to
probe a bit to
find out if they
want to
sharpen to do
good work or
sharpen for the
experience of
sharpening.
Over the decades that I have been doing
this I think I have tried just about every
kind of gizmo and gadget ever marketed
as being a sharpening machine, jig or fix-
ture. Most were messy, requiring water
or oil as a coolant. Some really tweaked
my interest initially but quickly proved to
be too much of a hassle to actually use
very often. Some were simple and
worked but were very slow and the re-
sults haphazard. Some had all kinds of
holding fixtures for each different kind of
hand cutting tool while others offered
some sort of one size fits all contraption.
Some turned an abrasive wheel vertically,
some horizontally, some had you push
the cutting edge over a stationary abra-
sive while still others had you push an
abrasive over a stationary cutting edge.
Independently of how they performed the
sharpening task, the biggest weakness in
all the systems I used in the past was the
inability to quickly reestablish the exact
same bevel angle I used when I sharp-
ened that tool the previous time. Each
time I sharpened a tool the cutting edge
was different by some amount, and I had
to learn to compensate for that difference
one use to the next. I always thought
there were enough variables from one
piece of wood to the next to keep me on