To a beginner woodcarver like myself, the reason you want to get into woodcarving is to get right into a piece of wood and start chipping and carving away to create your own work of art. You want to be able to reveal what's hiding inside that block of wood. You start by removing the background and surrounding wood and eventualy you get to the fun part, carving out the details. You can get lost for hours on one project and sometimes if it wasn't for my wife yelling down to tell me to go to bed, I would carve until the next morning. Nothing can ruin this expierience more than dull tools. In order to be able to carve the wood into what you want your tools need to be razor sharp no if's and's or but's. I think of sharpening as a necessary evil. It's not fun, but you have to do it and you have to learn how to keep your tools sharp.
So how often do you have to sharpen? How do you know when it's time to sharpen? Well, what i've picked up so far is that a good rule of thumb is, every couple of hours of carving per tool you need to do some sharpening. If you can't shave the hairs off your forearm, you need to sharpen. No problem right? The best answer I heard is "you will just know when it's time to sharpen your tools". It's like the difference between shaving with a brand new razor vs. Using one that's over a week old. When I first got my Swiss Made tools I couldn't believe how easily the tools were gliding through the wood. I can actually say it was like a hot knife through butter. The only time the tools caught on the wood was if I was carving in the wrong direction. The tool left crisp clean cuts and the wood almost looked wet with a nice sheen left behind. With every stroke I could hear this beautiful sound like paper ripping or a zipping noise. Inevidably, this didn't last too long. I could see and feel that my tools were starting to loose their razor sharp polished edge. Those beautiful shiny cut marks started to look like fur and I felt myself pushing harder to get through the wood no matter in which direction I was going. OK, it's time to sharpen...sigh.
Much like the overwhelming feeling you get when you try to decide which tools to buy for the first time, sharpening is no different. There are slipstones, strops, compounds, oil stones, water stones, diamond, soft stones, hard stones, ceramic, power sharpeners (long deep breath in) just to name a few options. There are also hundreds of books, DVD's and how to's on the internet available covering this subject. Improper sharpening can ruin those expensive tools so what I did was read up on the subject and practiced on some cheap tools and knives before attempting to sharpen my good tools. It was a good thing I started out on the cheap tools because the first couple if tries I destroyed them and they will need to be reshaped and honed. But I didn't consider it a total failure because I learned something from it. Most books I've read assumes you're starting with a severely damaged or dull tool and guide you through step 1 through 1 million (ok there aren't one million steps to sharpening but it can seem that way) and fail to explain that with regular care, you may never need to use a stone. Sharpening is a progression. With a damaged tool or one that has no edge or bevel, you start with a soft stone with honing oil or water (whichever you decide to use, water or oil, you will continue to use for the life of the stone. The liquid is used to keep the metal particles from getting impacted in the stone therefore ruining the stone) or a low grit diamond sharpener. Keep the tool at about a 25 degree angle and push it away from you over and over until you form a burr along the edge then strop the burr off and move up to the next highest gritt or harder stone repeat and keep going and eventually you'll be ready for polishing. If you start with a razor sharp tool and every couple of hours of use or when you notice you're having to use more force to cut through the wood, simply polish the tool, you can maintain that razor sharp edge for as long as you don't get lazy and over work the tool. Occasionaly you will need to use a couple of strokes on and extra hard stone or high grit sharpener and you can keep the soft stones on reserve in case you drop your tools or hit a staple in the wood.
Stay tuned for part two and I will explain polishing and sharpening in more detail and show you an easy way to keep all your gouges an v tools razor sharp.
