Cutting newsprint

Re: Cutting newsprint

Clint Jones

>Ive never heard of cutting newspaper to test how sharp your blade is. I usually just shave some hair off of my arm. If it will shave hair easily like a razor its sharp enough. I do look kinda funny with a patch of hair missing on my left arm.

Re: Cutting newsprint

Dale Lenz

>I do look kinda funny with a patch of hair missing on my left arm.

Thanks, Clint, but that's why I quit shaving my arm hair. Just trying to take my sharpening edge up a notch, if it's not a hugh hassle. Dale

Re: Cutting newsprint

Warren in Lancaster, PA

>My plane iron will cut newsprint, but I am afraid I must tell you that I think that nearly every routine and set of materials discussed on this forum could give the same results in practised hands. Just yesterday, the fellow from Belgium was talking about waterstones as if this or that stone might not be good enough. Yet I was wondering if he was that fine a workman that he could notice the difference in the stones.

When I was at the Williamsburg conference I got a complimentary video, David Charlesworth on chisel sharpening. One thing I admired was that he deliberately picked modestly priced stones and developed a system for those stones. I think we have many fine systems, any one of which a worker of years ago would have given half a years pay to possess.

Re: Cutting newsprint

Steve Kubien

>Lots of galoots walking around with patchy arm-hair. Try taking a paring-like cut on the end grain of some pine. If it cuts cleanly (leaving a glossy surface), your iron and/or chisel is as sharp as it needs to be. Well, it's as sharp as most people need it.

My $0.173 Cdn

Steve Kubien

Re: Barber knows best

ThomD

>This one works, it's from the barber. You wet a nail, and then at your prefered low angle you instroduce the blade to it. If it hooks up with only the gentlest pressure, you are ready to hone. When you have it honed, you wet a finger tip, and perform a similar introduction if it hangs on your wet finger it is super sharp (though in extreme terms one can always keep polishing). This stuff corresponds to just at razor sharpness borderline, and really nicely razor sharp. Afterall it takes a really sharp chisel to perform a comfortable facial shave. This method does not hurt, does not abrade or change your skin or nails. Barbers developed it so they could sharpen and shave all day long without looking like they have the mange.

I think in the tools context, one shouldn't really have to check, but I'm not that good most of the time. If one perfectly performs a given routine one should not have to check it, the process should deliver the goods. Or at the least, the check is a check, and not required because one doesn't know where one is in the process. I may check the map, but that doesn't mean I am lost. Well I hope not.

Re: Cutting newsprint

Wiley Horne

>Dale,

It's my standard test for all blades. The blade slides through the newsprint, when the two are introduced at right angles.

I totally agree with Warren that it's no big feat, just practice and experience. And all sharpening systems will produce it. I once used waterstones through 8000, then Shapton ceramic through 8000 or 12000, and now diamond paste through 1/4micron--same results. I get blades in planes from Larry Williams sharpened on translucent Arkansas stone--same thing.

Also agree with the others that there are many good tests. Pick one and get comfortable with it. After a while, you will notice small differences in how well a blade passes your test--like in newsprint does it make a sound, or does it slide through like it didn't even see the paper.

To me, the key thing in sharpening is to cut the burr off--not work it back and forth which work hardens the edge. Try this: Take the edge through your first stone (say, 1000), don't back off but go on to a late set on the second stone you use, that will give the 'hinge' a chance to thin out. Back off late on the second stone or early on the third stone (if you use a 3-stone set). Just a suggestion--this is not original with me, it comes from a couple of the Japanese blade gurus.

Wiley

Relevance?

bill tindal, E.TN

>If someone can cut newsprint and then after planing 10' they can't I would suggest that this is an irrelevant measure of sharpness for woodworking. Lets here it from the news print cutters.

I resharpen when I can't cut wood. I presume that is well beyond the dullness that won't cut paper.

Ditto

Stephen Kirk in Quakertown PA

>Every time I hear a new gauge of sharpness or method of getting there, I figure someone isn't actually making anything out of wood. I tend to resharpen when I feel the plane having some difficulty, or when I get tearout (which isn't always a sharpness problem). I also figure my blades wouldn't come close to passing muster in most people shops - but then I try to work wood, not the planes. Not that I'm saying striving for more sharpness is a bad thing, but maybe we shouldn't get too hung up on it. Let the quality of the the woodwork show how well you sharpened.

Re: Ditto

Dean J in MN

>I agree -- Sharp enough to get the job done quickly and safely is what I shoot for.

I think part of it is techinque -- Over the years I've noticed I don't require perfectly sharp blades in my planes. Or another way, I tend to work longer -- with satisfactory results -- than I did when I was lower on the learning curve. When I need a nice surface I sharpen more, my smooth plane is always in the "swickkk" sounding stage. But my fore plane is sharpened when my arms feel the resistance. Long after the plane stops making that pretty "swickkk" sound. My try plane falls between those two points.

Cheers!

-Dean

Re: Cutting newsprint

Bill Lowrance

>These sharpening exchanges always make me wonder why 3M or somebody doesn't make artificial-forearm-hair sharpening-gauge sheets...

Re: FOLKS!!

Dale Lenz

>I just ask a simple question, newsprint is a new gage for me. As far as sharpening irons and using them, unless you work wood 40 hours a week + week-ends I bet you don't push a plane as much as I do!

WC is generally a good place to ask questions w/o the arrogant know-it-all.

Hilarious!

Stephen Kirk in Quakertown PA

>

Re: Relevance

Wiley Horne

>Hi Bill,

The relevance to me is that if you can sharpen, you can sharpen. It's as easy to sharpen to newsprint cutting as it is to sharpen to something less. You get in the habit, you have a standard that works, and so you do it.

There are other tests, and I suppose everyone uses some kind of test, if only to run their thumb over the edge.

I will say this: If you are not sharpening gouges to a high standard, they won't work. And I can't imagine paring dovetail baselines with less than a very sharp chisel.

But the main thing is--if you can sharpen, it's no trick to get things sharp. So why not?

Wiley

Re: FOLKS!!

woodburnbob

>Dale, having just read through the thread, I can see why you say that. From forums of all kinds, as often as not, one gets responses that are off topic or condescending or confusing or poorly articulated or flat wrong. The ludicrous ones amuse me most. But, these are sometimes garnished with messages from brilliant folks, the good hearted and new friends. So some of the time it evens out. Even though I never can, it's best to not take much of it personally.

Shaving curls from the edge of newsprint, not using any sort of skewing or slicing motion, only pushing, correlates highly with how sharp the chisel/cutter will work in practice...for me, that is. But I generally use printer paper since it's at hand more often than a newspaper. When trying to get something really sharp, it's not worth going on until I reach this point. So, I'm a paper shaver. Hi, I'm Bob; I'm a paper shaver.

I'm sure you understand that paper has grain and one edge will cut easier than another. Most paper is "sized" (coated with glue) to decrease absorption and stiffen it a little. Newprint isn't sized.

Anyway, Dale, I think wanting to sharpen to a "paper shaving" standard is sensible and practical. I think this is achieved by having a method to polish the edge without degrading it regardless of the abrasive used. Light pressure/force and consistency in maintaining angles is what helps me most...sometimes.

Re: Cutting newsprint

Ernie Miller

>how about hides that have not had the hair removed? Thinking that I need to get my marketing schmooz going! $49.95 + S&H for a 3"X6" peice but wait! I will also include HMCA glue spreader! and for the next 10 minutes I will doubble your order if paying by CC and pay seperate S&H.

testing questions-why?

bill tindal, E.TN

>This Forum still has surprises even after all these years. It never crossed my mind that experienced woodworkers tested after sharpening. Or at least that is what I think I am hearing?

These are all honest questions......Why? Do you find that some significant fraction of the time you need to resharpen because the edge didn't meet the test? Don't you continue to use the tool long after it would fail the test, and hence the test is irrelevant? I can't imagine that a chisel would cut news print after chopping one dovetail and I sure don't sharpen after every dovetail. As inexperienced as I am with hand tools I know when a chisel won't pare or a plane won't cut and hence it needs sharpening, or isn't sharp, without the aid or hair or paper. Bottom line, what does the test, be it hair or paper, tell you, that you don't already know either because you just repeated a sharpening routine you have done a hundred times or you lay the tool to wood and it does as expected? Perhaps I am deluding myself but I think I can look at the tool after each sharpening step, and tell if it was done to completion.

Re: testing questions-why?

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Don't know about everyone else, but I prefer working wood to the sharpening process, particularly the part involving the removal and reinsertion and readjusting of the blade. So if I declare a blade sharpened but it isn't, as evidenced by inserting it in the plane body and adjusting, I've got to start the process from scratch. I think it much more efficient and fun to verify that the blade is indeed ready for work.

It's sort of like chopping mortises, during which it's necessary to test that the mortise is sufficiently deep. Or planing edges and having to test repeatedly that the edge is flat. Or....

Pam

I think it's relevant...

Bryan in Broad Ripple, IN

>Bill,

Maybe I'm missing your point, but I find it hard to believe that when you were starting out, you didn't use some sort of method or criteria to determine what was "sharp'; whether it was shaving the hair off of your arm, or cutting the end grain of pine.

We can argue all day about the validity of one method of testing verses another, but what is important is having some sort of standard to judge your level of relative sharpness. That way, you can focus on obtaining a level of repeatability with your technique, and improving your methods for shapening. This in turn, allows you to refine your technique so that you can achieve a reasonable level of "sharp" as effectively (quickly) as possible.

Whether or not a slightly worn blade refuses to cut paper or arm hair is irrelavant. That is not how I (nor most people, I suspect) judge when a tool is dull. Dullness is judged by the tools responsiveness in wood. But, for determining when to cease your sharpening efforts and judge the blade to be "good", some sort of objective method is completely necessary until you have the skills required to subjectively make such a determination.

-Bryan

Strange coincidences

Stephen Kirk in Quakertown, PA

>Just as I read some replies, I open the latest copy of Pop Woodworking to find an article on what else - sharpening. Not really prevalent to this thread, but I thought it was an odd coincidence nonetheless.

Test results

Warren in Lancaster, PA

>I never tried to cut newspaper with a plane iron until last night. But having admitted publicly that I could, I suppose , Bill, I am one of those you mean when you say "Lets here it from the newsprint cutters."

This evening I sharpened the iron and planed cherry. After 24 feet, I could still cut the newspaper. After 48 feet, the iron cut only very poorly, not really "passing".

I think it is important to have a feel for how sharp the iron is as we work and to know when the dullness is affecting surface quality or is getting toward the range where resharpening becomes more difficult. My feeling is that the edge dulls gradually over the working period. Someone suggested a few months ago that after "two swipes" the sharpness was gone; I don't think that is borne out by experience.

I agree with Dean that some operations require more sharpness than others. The smoothing plane gets sharpened to enhance surface quality while the foreplane gets sharpened to ease the work.I agree with Bryan that the feedback we get from actually using the tool is the important thing.

Re: Cutting newsprint

Todd Hughes

>I used to test a sharpened knife by cutting a piece of unsupported [held by one edge only] piece of news paper slicing off thin sections. A really sharp knife will not only cut a piece of newspaper like this but will be able to turn and cut upward too [think a "U" shaped cut]

Is easy to get a blade sharp enough to cut newsprint though to be able to do this "U" shaped cut is not so easy, at least to me

I sharpen on a couple old sharpening stones I found in a box of junk and that are far from flat and finish up on a hard translucient. Most times I just use some WD40 for a lubricant....Tell you the truth never really spent to much time thinking about it ....Todd

agreed.

bill tindal, E.TN

>

Re: testing questions-why?

ThomD

>I agree with you Bill, and said something the same in my post.

Part of it is that some people can't sharpen and it's part of the process of gaining confidence. Some people can't help it, my father for instnace insists on caressing the edge of every tool he comes across. I am a little surprised he can still play the piano the way he goes after it. I have pointed out that it is bad maners, but what the heck he has earned the right. And then even tool snobs who know better accasionally want to go surfing on the edge just like looking over the railing at Niagara Falls. Then too you can be working up some knew stuff and really need to know. Sometimes we do bad things out of necesity and hope we have improved maters like my winter sandpaper work on summer wetstone edges. And other times one may be trying to get rid of some damage. I could go on, you probably think i already have...

Re: testing questions-why?

ThomD

>"Or planing edges and having to test repeatedly that the edge is flat."

The plane is a very sensitive straight edge, moreso than a ruler. Planing is testing the edge for straightness which may explain the "trying".