Will - What type of stones are you using? FWIW I have a nice set of Shapton ceramic waterstones that I would consider parting with........ Terry Farrell On Oct 9, 2010, at 11:54 AM, William Truitt wrote: > Terry, I think you should put that picture on your website with the > caption – “A well sharpened chisel will give a much cleaner cut”. > J (that’s coming from someone who has sliced and diced himself too!) > > I have a couple of Japanese paring chisels very much like yours. > Sharpened on a good set of Japanese waterstones, they take a > fearsome, mirror edge and will cut so cleanly that they will leave a > burnished surface in the maple. > > The blade portion of the laminated chisel is made of very hard steel > – on a really good Japanese chisel, it will be 64 to 66 on the > Rockwell C scale, which is about as hard a steel as we can get for > edge tools. Steel this hard is also quite brittle, which means it > is prone to chipping and or even breakage. Which is why it is > laminated to much softer steels for the shank of the chisel. These > steels are more flexible and less prone to breakage. Thus the > combination of the two steels in a lamination gives the best of both > worlds. So these quality chisels will never be a “bung” chisel and > using it as such will tantamount to “tool abuse”. I have my “s..t > chisels” to be used with reckless abandon. > > Sharpening a chisel well means sharpening BOTH sides of the chisel, > always keeping the edge at a consistent angle as you sharpen, and > using a progression of stones with ever finer grits. If you were to > look at a chisel edge under sufficient magnification, you would see > that the edge would not be a single straight line, but rather look > like a rough series of large serrations. Moving the chisel over the > stone, reduces the size of the serrations as you progress up in > grits. Even that mirror edge will have serrations, but they will be > very small. My stones go from 600 grit to 8000 grit. There are > some ceramic stones that go up to 30,000 grit. You learn to sharpen > by understanding proper technique and practice, practice, practice – > it is an acquired skill > > Will -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20101013/638e1e8e/attachment.htm>
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