Woodwork Ireland

How to Sharpen Woodworking Chisels

There are various levels of quality available in wood chisels, like any other tool. No matter what kind of chisels you have, they’re going to need to be sharpened. In this post, I’ll try to explain how to take care of chisels, and explain what you need to do to sharpen them.

First, don’t keep them loose in a drawer or box. They’ll knock against each other, which causes the cutting edges to become blunt. It’s best to hang them on a rack - a narrow shelf with holes drilled through is ideal - or place them in a drawer with wooden dividers between them. By doing this, you can make sure the only way they get dulled is from use. Obviously, the place you keep them in should be dry, clean, and out of the reach of children.

A dulled chisel is bad in two ways - it doesn’t cut cleanly, and it’s dangerous. Sharp chisels grab the wood immediately, and don’t slip, so you’ve a much smaller chance of jabbing yourself with a good edge than with a blunted one. You’re going to need a sharpening stone and a slipstone, as well as a strop to do the job right.
Take your sharpening stone, and oil it. This is important, because the lubrication between the stone and the chisel is essential. You end up just grinding the blade otherwise!

Hold the chisel at a 20-degree angle (or thereabouts) to the stone and slide the cutting edge of the chisel up and down the stone. You need to work both sides of the chisel blade evenly in order that a burr edge (a tiny curl of metal) forms along the cutting edge.

The best way to check for the burr is by very (very!) carefulyl and lightly dragging your finger away from the cutting edge. If you can feel a slight roughness on the very edge of the chisel then you know the blade is ready for a slip stone, which you use to hone away some of the burr before you finally polish it on a strop.

To remove the final remaining bits of the burr edge, as well as to polish up the chisel blade you need a leather strop. What you do is draw the blade across the strop away from the cutting edge first one side then the other until the whole of the burr has been removed.

You’ll know that your chisel sharpening has been completed properly by just resting the cutting edge of the blade very lightly on your thumbnail. If the blade starts to catch a bit or feels sticky then it’s good to go, but if it slips across the nail, you need to work on sharpening it a little bit more.

I’ve found a lot of this out by trial and error, and a few bits from reading online. If you’ve any furtehr suggestions, please let me know!