Sharpening to 250-grit: Woodworking cutting edges that work | Paul Sellers

I just wrote a blog this week I've been working on it really for a while and the reason I wrote it was because I've become increasingly more and more concerned about magazine articles technical details in catalogs other woodworkers around the world telling us more and more that we have to sharpen our planes to 15,000 25,000 grit to get the kind of pristine finishes that we need in woodworking and I have to give you a little historical perspective on this because going back in my own history 50 years ago when I first started woodworking we only sharpened on what was called a Norton India stone and they're still being made today and there are two sided stone they of course on one side and fine art on the other and those two grits are about 250 on one side and 400 mm on the other and that was all we have a sharpen to for the longest time and then I started reading the magazines about Diamond pace and about diamond plates and Japanese water stones and slurries and pastes and and everything else and it became this confusing mass of information and I just wanted to show you what I've done and what I did I where I took this this this is basically a number four and a half plane with a standard fitting I know thick iron standard iron 250 grit then I took my Stanley my old Stanley and I did this one to twelve hundred grit and then i did this other standard plane to fifteen thousand grit to show you that you could actually if you wanted to you could sharpen to 250 300 400 and get very very good results and so i've taken a piece of what we called 2x3 here in britain you'd call it three by two in the US and when I'm making a door or a doorframe out of Redwood this is this is Scandinavian redwood which is a harder grained redwood much harder than any of the I think most if not all of the American Pines it grows very slowly and so I wanted to take a shading off here now look at this this is taking us shavings just fine at 250 grit this is 250 it feels more than adequately smooth and I could do everything this tool chest that I made here I could have planed this whole tool chest at 250 grit and it would have been just fine so why did I go with a finer grit will I get less resistance when I'm planing that way but but this whole tool chassis is one I've just finished on master classes you know and this could have been planed exactly the same way if I want to put a shelter on here using the 250 here see this there's my chamfer chamfer on this edge and it's it's glistening the surface of the the word here is glistening this is 250 not 2500 not 25,000 this is just 250 it's working if I want to plane the end grain let's see what we get on the end grain with this 250 just backing my iron off just to her again we're in here at 250 and there's my end grain and it's actually shining and this is the end grain from the chop saw so this is what I was at before that's how it looked before now it looks like this it's smooth enough for everything that I want to do with it so let me go ahead with this next grit here so that's my 250 here's Matt 1200 now that's working fine I don't have any I don't feel any difference in the resistance between the 250 and the twelve hundred now maybe my senses are not as sensitive as they should be it would be hard to put I'm sure we could measure the amount of pressure it takes to affect a shaving but the surface itself doesn't feel a whole lot different than I have from the 250 so we know what obviously we'll be able to do the shampoo and the endgrain with a more shot a well sharpened iron so here's my 15,000 this now this size at 15,000 I can feel a little bit less resistance but not a whole lot the surface feel smoother definitely feel smoother but I now have to roughen this if I'm making this chest I now have to roughen this to get this rough to take the adhesion that I need for the finish that goes on it so I still have to go to this with 250 grit so I'm already at 250 grit when I finish it this so I could almost eliminate the need for sandpaper because this is 250 so these are questions really question now if you love a Saturday you've got a Saturday away from the computer you're not doing software engineering anymore this Saturday and you want to go in the in the workshop or the garage and take a plane chisel and show on it 250 thousand grit and get this pristine edge on it there's nothing wrong with that spend the afternoon just taking shaving after shaving there's a real pure joy and I'm not disputing that all I'm saying is if you just shot them to 250 or 1200 grit you eliminate a lot of expense you don't have to buy the diamond plates you could use it not in India Stone's work just fine that's what we used for I use that for probably the first two decades of my woodworking life then I went to finer grits then I was working on finer and finer work and I needed the extra sharpness for some of my work Joseph he uses 25,000 grit regularly if he's sharpening his violin planes his gouges or whatever then he would go he would need that for the surface that he needs because he can't sum the inside of his violence because it affects the tone but for me this 250 is working just fine a little extra set these are just fine shading and the edge of a door the bottom of the door even a cabinet like this this is more than adequate you don't have to sharpen to 25,000 degree or 15,000 you can stop at 1,200 you can stop at 250 so this is going to be a little controversial but this surface is dead level dead smooth and it's everything you need at 250

Channel: Paul Sellers

Views: 268,706

Rating: 4.9598856 out of 5

Keywords: Wood, Sharpening, Hand Plane, Chisels, paul sellers

Id: UbAo4RpM7oM

Length: 7min 56sec (476 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 08 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/laser_lights]

Thanks for sharing. He seems to bring some saneness back into the sharpening world. For those of us just beginning it can be a task just to get the techniques of sharpening down, then add on top of that the seemingly endless options of sharpening tools and extreme grits and it can be overwhelming. I have a dual sided waterstone that goes to 4000 (~2000 European equivalent?) grit and in practice I've always felt like that has been enough to get a good edge, but when I see other stones that go up to 10,000 or sand papers that people use with the scary sharp method at 15,000+ grits, you begin to wonder if you're doing enough. Of course Paul Sellers has amazing planing technique, but if he can get quality finishes and be happy at 250 grit, I can certainly do well with something much less extreme on the grit scale.

And most importantly I think this simplifies sharpening. Start at a low grit, get a good edge, slowly move up to something in the mid range. Then you get to work on your projects and not spend your whole day sharpening!

[u/Luxpreliator]

I think a relevant point he raised is that for the most part a plane is going to give a smooth surface and there does need to be a slight amount of roughness to the wood for glue or finishing to adhere. I will polish my kitchen knifes to 600-1000 and one secret one I keep super sharp with higher grit, but I agree that shop tools don't need that. I've used a light touch on 180 grit with a belt sander in a pinch for sharpening and been perfectly content with the results. Keeping a consistent sharpening angle is much more important.

[u/bobasaurus]

This is interesting, though he's using a very straight-grained piece of wood. I wonder what would happen if he were trying to plane through varying grain directions and knotholes... I was getting significant tear-out on weird woods before I bought my 15k stone, even with finely set planes. Maybe you only need the fine sharpening grits for difficult planing tasks like this, and you could get away with coarse otherwise.

[u/bridgerberdel]

I teach sharpening and use the comparison between a straight razor and a paint scraper to illustrate the concept of appropriate sharpness. smoothing planes definitely need to be sharper than jointers, which need to be sharper than fore/scrub/jack planes. I use a steel on kitchen knives, which I think don't need as fine an edge as woodworking tools. I disagree with Sellers about finish adhesion, but if you use sandpaper anywhere on a piece you'd better use it on the whole thing or the difference will show.

[u/nukegoat]

For production work, sharpening with 30,000 grit shaptons is a waste of time, sure. But if you're a hobbyist and prefer working with sharper tools, the time can be justified. I sharpen with an 8,000 grit Naniwa SS as my final stone because I'm content doing so.