Sharpening Beginner's Guide

This guide summarizes the approach outlined in Sharpening and the Japanese Hand Plane in Depth by Dale Brotherton. This book is well worth the money to have as a reference and covers sharpening, chisel setup, hand plane setup, and troubleshooting each. Below, we recommend water stones rather than oil stones and carborundum powder given the availability of water stones and the relative ease of maintenance.

• At least one medium grit stone (~1000 grit)
• (If you can afford it) a fine stone (~5000 grit or higher)
• Something to sharpen

This 1k/5k Shapton combo set will do great for beginners at $100.

You do not need to spend a ton of money on stones when starting. When beginning, you will need to develop the hand-eye coordination to keep your blade flat against the stone. It's better to get something that wears well and won't be a total pain to keep flat then something that can theoretically create a better edge.

If $100 is above your budget, find the best stone you can afford and use it. Cheaper stones will likely be softer and may require more frequent flattening, but that's not a barrier to entry.

Another budget-friendly alternative is just using sandpaper stuck to a flat surface with double sided tape or water.

At the root of it, sharpening involves:

1. flattening a sharpening stone,
2. flattening the back of your tool,
3. creating a burr across the entire front of your tool, and finally
4. removing the burr by polishing the back again.

The grit numbers on stones are like grits in sandpaper - the higher the number, the finer the abrasive particles in the stone. Lower grits will remove more material faster, but leave the edge of the tool ragged and microscopic grooves in the face of the tool. Higher grits will remove less material and “even out” deeper scratches.

Stones are flattened using a “lapping plate”, which is a fancy way of saying a flat reference surface with some abrasive on it. Here are some ways you can create a lapping plate:

• Find a piece of thick plate glass or a granite counter remnant and stick some sand paper to it (cost: a few dollars for sandpaper and glass)
• Buy a 400 grit Atoma plate (cost: ~$100) or a Suehiro Flattening Stones (cost: $20).

Any method is fine to start. As you're refining your practice, you'll probably want to stop using sand paper since the silica in the paper can get embedded in your stones. But you can get *very* sharp tools using sandpaper. Better to get practice using what you have available than stop yourself from trying because you don't have the ideal setup.