Extremely Average

Every 500 years or so a great discovery is made, one that will change mankind and the universe as we know it.  Fire was the first.  The wheel made the list.  The Chinese had discovered gunpowder and it changed the course of history, for if gunpowder had not been discovered there wouldn’t have been guns and ultimately no ‘Naked Gun 2 1/2′.  So it is a good thing they were on their game.

Today I made a discovery, that will forever change the universe.  Ok that is an exaggeration,  but it will most certainly alter the course of American history.  No that isn’t right either.  This discovery will, at the very least, make me very happy and have no bearing on society or the universe as a whole.  Many moons ago, in a blog piece long forgotten, I told the tale of work bench leg measuring errors, cause in no small part, by my divided attention.  I tried to mark them while watching The Ohio State Buckeyes play football.  I learned that one can not make accurate and repeatable measurements while screaming, “Sack  him you crazy dog!  Crush the quarterback like the grape that he is!!!”

Today I, and yesterday to some extent, discovered that one can sharpen planes and chisels on a slab of marble, while enjoying their favorite shows on Hulu.  It may eve lead to a sharper blade as one isn’t in such a hurry to finish, and can just keep sanding away the steel until it is ‘scary sharp’ as they say.  After last night’s blog post was posted, I took a break from the spokeshave blade and started to lap the sole of the Stanley 110.  I did this until 3 am.

I was starting to suspect that starting with 180 grit was not the answer, and sure enough, when I got up this morning (early afternoon), I read a comment that confirmed my suspicion.  So today I went and bought some 80 and 150 sheets and gave it another go.  The sharpening time dropped dramatically.  The next thing I did was to grab everything I could possibly think of, and pile it on the desk.  I have now sharpened 4 of my chisels and they are fantastic.  I also got the sole of the 110 looking pretty good too.

A few months back I tried to use an old English hand plane, with little success.  Those were my first shavings and it brought me a little bit of happiness.  When I grabbed the scrap piece of hard maple and ran the 110 over it, the results were markedly better.  The blade still needs some work, but I just had to try it out.  Making shavings is a thrill.  I can say, without question, that I am a complete hand plane addict now.

In fact, I found a guy on line, who is selling off his collection and gave him a call.  We talked for about a half an hour and he knows more about hand planes, than I do about…hmmm I don’t really know much of anything about anything, so using me as a comparison…digression part deux.  The point is that I had a bunch of questions and he knew the answers.  It was great.  Thanks Sean, if you are reading.  I am going to go look at his collection next weekend.  I am very excited.

Today’s discovery wasn’t really about sanding.  The real discovery was more of an understanding that the path I have chosen, really seems to fit my personality and temperament.  I am glad that I am remaining true to my plan.  I am focusing on learning hand tools, building things for woodworking, and discovering as much as I can along the way.  In the grand scheme of things it may not be as impressive as fire or the wheel, but this realization warms my heart and keeps me moving along in my journey just the same.

Being an early riser I got up at the crack of noon today.  I was excited to try out my new whetstone flattening tool, though not before a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich.  It was super tasty.  Before I could get started with my whetstone chore, I got distracted by the practice dovetails I was working on.  As I mentioned yesterday, I broke the really good pins I had created yesterday, but before I went to bed I had cut some more.

Let me take this moment to say how much I love my try square.  It is so very user friendly.  The marks that I laid out for the pins and tails were a delight.  I like the way it feels to use, I like how confident I feel about the accuracy, and I like the brass bits on it.  If you don’t have a try square, and I am sure most of you do, run out and get one, except for my mom and dad, as they don’t really have any need to mark an accurate line or know if something is 90 degrees.  Everyone else though should get one as soon as possible.  My little brass marking gauge is very handy too.  I like the way the mark makes the placement of the chisel much easier than just a pencil line.  This is one of the most exciting parts of my recent dovetail practicing, the improvement in the line across the bottom.

I am still not quite perfect at the fit yet.  There are little gaps, but the most recent set is better than the one before it.  The learning curve seems to be similar to what I experienced with the mortise and tenons.  With each attempt comes an educational blunder.  It takes me hours to cut one set.  If one compares this to the online videos of people doing it in 3 minutes, well, it is longer.  Have I mentioned that I am the son of a mathematician?  I digress.

The point is that it is hours and hours of enjoyment.  The last set, when the pens finally were paired down enough to fit, was a tremendous job.  The hours of joy were not consecutive today however.  I had marked some pins before bed, and I cut them quite quickly.  Next I needed to do some chisel work and I checked my chisel, and lo and behold, it needed some sharpening.  This brought me back to the whetstone flattening.

I bound up the stairs, grabbed the whetstone and took it downstairs to the precision flattening cinder block.  I rubbed the whetstone across it and a satisfying red color started to cover the block.  I flipped it over, excited to see how it looked.  The sight was very cool.  The edges were wearing down.  I thought to myself, “This won’t take long”.  This turned out to be true, if one is comparing the time it took to the length of time since the big bang occurred.  In actual time it took a 30 minute session, followed by some lunch, another 15 minute session, and then a break to watch golf.  After Ernie Els finished the 18^th hole, I brought the cinder block upstairs and put it on my lap, and started the final session.  This last session took exactly 5 episodes of the Mentalist.  I watched and rubbed.

After it was flat, I spent about 30 minutes sharpening, and went back to my dovetail cutting practice.  The newly sharpened chisel did a lovely job, and before I knew it, it was nine in the evening and time to share my woodworking day with the world, which I have done.  Now back to the Mentalist, this isn’t as good as Psyche, but is still entertaining.

One must take the approach that today’s task is practice for tomorrow’s triumph.

-Sharpening Monk Proverb

It has been quite a while since I devoted an evening to practice.  Tonight I felt I would do some and get myself ready for a weekend of router table work.  I am close enough to getting it finished that I can almost smell it, and it smells, well like sawdust.  I think that is probably pretty typical with woodworking.  The smell of success would seem out of place if it was the odor of cinnamon buns or a bacon cheeseburger.  But I digress.

I set my sights on some hand cut dovetail practice.  After I marked the practice piece for pins and made the cuts I grabbed my 3/8 Irwin chisel.  A close inspection revealed that it was dull and a little bit dinged up.  The dings looked rather severe and I didn’t relish trying to grind them down on the 1000 grit stone.  While it is true that I have a bevy of grinders in the garage, they are old and scary, and would most likely do more damage than good.

I learned several things today, while I was sharpening.  The first pearl of wisdom which made itself known to me, was that sharpening is not terribly complex.  Step one, flatten the back, not too hard, just move the back of the chisel across the wet tone to and fro, fro and to.  I did this for a few minutes.  Step 2, put the chisel into a sharpening guide, and then run it back and forth across the whetstone.  The second step is the one I dreaded, as I knew that a normal person would have ground out the dings before starting, thus saving them considerable time.

I was reminded of the old saying, “A watched chisel, never sharpens.”  It seemed that every time I flipped the chisel over, wiped off the edge and looked at it, there was a disheartening amount of progress.  So I stopped looking and got into a bit of a rhythm.  Occasionally I would change hands and go the other direction.  I remember reading that it is important to try to use the whole whetstone, to keep it even.  Back and forth I went and before long I had my second wonderful sharpening wisdom pop into my head, “It is something that can be done while one thinks about other stuff and this helps the time pass.”  I started to wonder if the reason that many people find sharpening to be a challenge is that they don’t reach this state of Zen sharpening.  I thought about how I hadn’t especially enjoyed the first five minutes, but now that my mind was wondering I didn’t find it too bad at all.  This went on for quite a while, when the thought of those two dings popped back into my head.

“Ugh I thought to myself.  I wish I had a nice grinder.  Maybe that purchase should be moved up on my list of priorities?  I wonder if I should just break down and buy another Irwin chisel and start over, they aren’t that expensive.  I don’t know.  I am a little hungry.  I need a snack.  I don’t want to stop though.  When will you check the blade again?  Oh it doesn’t matter, I am sure I will still have a long way to go.  I wonder if my girlfriend from my freshman year will read today’s post?  She does sometimes.  There is one cookie in the cookie jar, I could probably eat it with one hand and carefully continue sharpening with the other.”

This went on in my head for a while.  Finally I needed the cookie, so I took a break, washed my hands, and ate it.  It was delightful.  I was ready to get back to the chisel and decided to see how much further I had to go.  I flipped it over and was shocked, the dings were gone.  They were gone!  Had they snuck out while I was getting the cookie?  I couldn’t be sure.  Everything I had read made me believe that I would have to spend approximately 3 weeks, 9 hours, 27 minutes on the whetstone to get out the dings from the chisel.  This is why everyone grinds it down first.  It seems that one can indeed grind down a chisel manually; the trick is to think about other things and let time eat away the minutes and the steel.

I had been at it for about 30 minutes, and now was extremely enthused for sharpening.  I grabbed my 1 inch chisel and honed its edge.  Next I got one of my practice chisels and went at it.  I have a couple of really old chisels that are in need of serious work to get them into shape.  I grabbed one and flipped it over and looked at the back.  It was ugly and brown.  The steel was likely under all the age and gunk, I just had to find it.  So I put my brain into random thoughts mode and 30 minutes later it was looking much improved, though still not perfect.  I picked up another old practice chisel and spend another 30 minutes on it.  Ninety minutes of practice chiseling and I feel I am getting better at it.

When I was done with the sharpening I looked at my whetstone, I held it up and realized that I had failed in my attempt to keep it flat.  The stone was visibly shallower in the center.  It was a nice day so I hopped into the car and went to Ace Hardware for a cinder block.  It seems that one can use them to flatten a whetstone.  I am not sure if buying a cinder block counts as a tool purchase, so I picked up a file, just to be safe.   Tomorrow I will try out my brand new whetstone flattening device.

I went back to the dovetails and my newly sharpened 3/8^th inch Irwin made quick work of the waste.  Ok, it wasn’t quick work, as I still lack confidence with dovetails, but it was much quicker than if I hadn’t sharpened it.

I then set about making some tails, when looked awful.  The pins were brilliant, but the tails looked like the dove had been suffering from some terrible disease.  Naturally after I got them together, I broke one of the beautiful pins off, as I tried to pull it apart.  Oh well, it was just practice, and if one is to believe the wise sharpening monks, this will lead to a triumph tomorrow.

My belief that learning to use hand tool and to take care of them, will serve me well throughout my woodworking life, is not one shared by my fingers. It seems that practicing this skill daily has been met with suspicion by the digits. They don’t understand why I would work so hard to sharpen a small cheap chisel that I may never need. I tried to explain that the skill requires that I do it over and over. The case was made that it is better to get good on old chisels than to do a crappy job on new expensive chisels. This argument fell on deaf knuckles.