Alan DuBoff
>Marv wrote:
"This, IMO, is not the place to teach others how to sharpen saws."

While this is not where most people will *learn* how to sharpen, this is certainly a great place to help teach them. An open forum offers way more than some stale document on a website, which may or may not have all the information or present it in the best way, either. At best one has to read each one, take what they like from each, and formulate their own method that works for them. An open forum offers some advantages so that everyone doesn't need to go through the same process to understand the "why" or "how" of it.

Sure, others have put together documents, and those documents are well served as they have been to everyone, but an open forum offers us to talk about the process, and it allows people to interact together so that they are able to discuss the process in detail.

With that information, they can take it to their own shop and apply it. I know that this might sound odd, but this open forum interaction actually does get people interested in, and motivated to do something like sharpening their own saw. The amount of craftsmen that have fear of sharpening their own saw is only proof that the current stale documents do not work 100%, or every craftsman would be sharpening their own saw as was required (and performed) in days of lore.

You can smirk, scoff, or jest about it, but there are people that have been inspired enough to take on the task of trying it for themselves, as that is the only way one can really actually learn the skill of sharpening their saw...by *doing* it.

To discourage them at all is a dis-service to them, as a craftsman. and I wear a smile every time I see someone mention they did finally take the challenge and tried it for themselves...just to find out they should have done it a long time ago...

Cheers,
Alan