I don't worry about the surface rust that develops. It takes a couple of quick wipes to clean them off and they're good to go. I'm of the mind that my tools are tools, not show pieces and they are subject to some of the things that happen to tools. When they need a touch up I just hit them on some sand paper.
I'll agree with this. Unlike the power blades, cutters, sharp is more noticebale when powered AND guided by hand. Even hand plane blades have a structure around them to guide them. Your hand power just pushes the structure. A Lie Nielsen #5 plane with a less than sharp blade will perform far better than a Great Neck #5 plane with a sharp blade. Chisels, saws, and a few other tools, sharpness is number one importance.
For some strange reason I don't have a problem with rusted anything in my little Wisconsin shop. Not sure why.
Once I've got a chisel sharp enough to shave with, a few strokes on the five k grit and a few on the 8 k will bring it right back. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes from getting the stones out to putting them away.
Unless I drop it on the floor. Once I pulled a shoulder muscle trying to catch a chisel as it fell off the bench. Didn't catch it. It landed on a canvas toolbag, completey unharmed. And I realized that if I *had* caught it, I probably would have slit the web between my thumb and forefinger.
Since then, I don't worry about it so much.
1 minute.
Felt wheel, green chrome stick.
Use.
Sharpening is followed by honing, and perhaps by stropping. Tuning up in the middle of a project is done with a ceramic, maybe a minute, including pulling and replacing the stone. The sharpening is a rare thing, coarser honing is once in a while and perhaps five minutes. I do all with the same bevel when I hone, whether an individual chisel needs it or not. I strop the carving tools, don't strop chisels.
I don't store 'em where they'll get moisture and make sure they have none when I return them to the rack.
Either you don't do much wood working with that blade or will be in for a treat when you do get it sharpened. I had that blade for about 12 years and had it resharpened 4 or 5 times.
LOL!
Where in the world did you read something that said to dig the hole with a "sharp shovel"? That's truly amazing!
Makes it easier to cut through roots.
You've never heard of sharpening a shovel? I thought that was common knowledge.
so are we gonna start calling shovels "dirt chisels?"
| Where in the world did you read something that said to dig the hole | with a "sharp shovel"? That's truly amazing!
Not too amazing. Also sharpen your garden hoe and long-handled fork tines.
A sharpened (to _two_ edges) straight screwdriver won't slip out of the slot and mar your work as readily as a screwdriver with worn/rounded edges and corners.
I sharpen my center punch from time to time; and every now and then I run a fine file down the end of my putty knives - makes em work better for just about everything you'd want to use one for.
-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA
File hoes incannel, i.e. side of blade facing the operator. This pulls the blade into the soil when you pull on the tool.
Hollow ground tips jump out of the slot least, since the bearing faces are close to parallel -- there's a reason why your power screwdriver bits aren't flat ground. Be sure to grind off the corners, so they don't stick out past the slot and chew up the wood right when you get a screw driven home.
Makes it easy to "grab" the side of an offcenter punch mark and "move" it back on target.
I sharpen my silkscreen squeegies. Prints come out sharper, with less smudging.
My best friend is constantly using my screwdrivers for chisels (cold chisels) whenever he is working on something in my garage. On top of that - everything he uses, he sticks in his pocket. Not because he's trying to make off with it, but that's just his holding area for tools. Every time I go to grab a screwdriver it seems I find the tips broken - or the damned screwdriver is missing. Call Jim - sure enough, it's in his pocket. So... around here we've come to refer to screwdrivers as Jim's pocket chisels.
But, Jim is one of those friends who just can't do anything wrong. You know the type - they are such a good friend that they just can't do anything wrong.
Only the square ones. The round ones are dirt gouges. :)
" snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@8g2000cwh.googlegroups.com:
Don't try to catch sharp things! You may not realize this, but claw hammers claws also tend to be sharp... I picked up one in Menards once, and because of the design it didn't come out of the holder properly, and I tried to catch it. I caught it, but I wished I hadn't.
Puckdropper
innews: snipped-for-privacy@8g2000cwh.googlegroups.com:
They're also not meant for pulling hardened nails. The inside edges of the claws are sharp so you can grip a nail by its shank, not just its head.
Okay, you guys are missing the point. Never did I say or imply that it's not important for other items to be sharp (shovels included I guess. I'm not sure I would classify a shovel as a woodworking tool. Maybe if your chainsaw won't start though ;-) ). My point was that nobody states that they need to be sharp in order to use them with the same regularity and zeal that they do chisels. Of course a scraper and plane iron need to be sharp, but it's never mentioned explicitly. It's implied.
Mr. Haskell said that I obviously don't read enough. Yet, I still don't see any examples of anything to suggest I'm missing something.
For example, how many times have you watched NYW, Woodworks or something and the host squares up a hinge mortise or something and says "use a sharp chisel to square up the corners". But, when they use a block plane to put a slight chamfer on something, they don't say, "use a block plane with a sharp blade". It's just implied that the block plane blade should be sharp. However, with a chisel, it's not. They will explicitly state that the chisel needs to be sharp.
This is not a serious issue. Having sharp tools is serious, but the fact that it's only mentioned explicitly when using chisels and implied with seemingly everything else is just curious to me. That's all.
Tom Watson made a good point that because you hold a chisel in your hand, it's more dangerous than say a dull plane blade. I don't use a lathe, and others have said that it is common to mention "sharp" when using lathe tools and I can understand that too. I probably just never picked up on it because I haven't used a lathe.
Mike
There have been many times I've seen novice do-it-yourselfers trying to use a cold chisel let in a door latch.
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