Various other commitments....

That's always the reason for so little progress. This weekend I managed to steal about 2 hours to work on the boat.

An hour spent sharpening up some chisels. A flat waterstone grinder is the thing for flattening the back of your chisels. But the jig is really for planer blades. It's not great for chisels. A 120 grit Japanese Water stone will reshape your chisel in short order, and a set of Ice Bear Waterstones will get it silly sharp.

I cheat and use the Veritas Mk II sharpening Jig. Maybe with more practice...

All this sharpening was to allow me to spend the second hour changing the angle of some notches in the frames that join the transom. Of course if I had cut them right in the first place....

At any rate, it's kind of scary to see how easily a truly sharp chisel will cut through Solid Oak, even end Grain. Fingers Behind the blade and all that.

Wet stones and good blades

I had thought that shaving the back of your arm with a plane blade was an urban myth, perpetuated by the Old Woodworkers to make us new guys feel perpetually inadequate.

However, in search of sharpness, I bought some high carbon plane blades from Hock Tools and a set of Ice Bear Waterstones from Axminster. (Nice fast delivery on both counts)

So I spent the time flattening the back of the blade, then honing the front till I found the burr, then removing the burr.

And there you go. It lifted a few hairs from the back of my arm, not quite up to Gillette's standard, but sharper than anything I've managed previously.

I am converted. My old wet and dry paper collection will now be reserved for flattening the wetstones. I've already ordered a course 220 grit wetstone to do the back of the cheaper blades, which have far move visible machine marks.