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trades > fabrication > blade_sharpening

document updated 8 years ago, on Jul 22, 2015

There are blades that need to be sharpened, for example knives, axes, and chisels. (note that there are a wide range of edges that need to be sharpened, including: straight razors, saw teeth, machinist cutters, various axes (adze, froe), and various bladed weapons)

equipment
- whetstone and oilstone
  - alternative: diamond plate
  - alternative: sandpaper
  - sharpening jig — optional, mostly used for wood chisels and planes ~~(though there are a wide variety of more expensive jigs [1] [2] [3])~~
- flattening stone [2] — like a wheel dresser but for sharpening stones
  - alternative: the sandpaper-on-glass method is much cheaper
  - Flattening stones lose their flatness too. To fix this, you either need a diamond lapping plate, or use sandpaper-on-glass.
    - but Paul Sellers recommends skipping the waterstone + flattening plate + diamond plate, and go straight to using diamond plate to sharpen your blades [1] [2] [3]
- strop — optional, used when an extremely fine edge is needed ~~(eg. straight razors, wood chisels)~~
- honing steel
writeups
books that are highly recommended
- "The Perfect Edge, the Ultimate Guide to Sharpening for Woodworkers", by Ron Hock
  - book review
  - book review
- "The Complete Guide to Sharpening", by Leonard Lee
- "Taunton’s Complete Illustrated Guide to Sharpening", by Thomas Lie-Nielsen
DVDs
Wikipedia articles:

sharpening angle

There are some relatively expensive jigs if you want to get a precise angle on your knives.

There are also a few cheap alternatives:

the flashlight method

sharpening tweezers

good video