PEP BB tool.straw.chisel - sharpen a chisel

I used a two sided whetstone and a scrap of very dense oak to remove the bur.

This is the dull chisel before sharpening. I coated it with sharpie, so that I can see which sections of the chisel I am shaving off during the sharpening.



This is an action picture of me sharpening the chisel.



This is the finished sharpened chisel.

I will join Dave on his Chisel quest!

I found the chisel way harder than the knife with a wet stone. The chisel I had was already rounded and someone had tried to file the flat side. Needless to say... SO MUCH FUN!

The end product wasn't perfect. But I felt I was going to grind the whole chisel away before I had it perfectly flat. Much better than before! ... I think!

We don't do much woodworking around here, and I'm actually not even sure why we own chisels. But we do, so I decided to sharpen one for this BB.

I started out on a Smith's whetstone, and finished on a fine grit diamond stone. To remove the burr I just kept running it over the tabletop and the garage and feeling the tip until I felt no more burr. It does its job quite a bit better now!

Requirements to complete:
- must be an wood chisel(not a cold chisel etc.)
- must use a whet stone or similar sharpening method without petroleum products
- use an appropriate method to remove the bur


To get certified for this BB, post the following:

- pic of dull chisel edge or chisel with raggedly cut material(paper, light wood)
- action pic which includes all sharpening equipment used
- pic of the sharpened edge

My son bought me some chisels. They were blunt on arrival. No worries . . . I can sharpen them!

I tried cutting paper with the chisel and it just buckled. I couldn’t push it through one sheet.

I sharpened with 240 grit followed by 1000.

Much better - pushed straight through a sheet of paper.

I am my own worst enemy . . . Here’s the edge

 - pic of dull chisel edge or chisel with raggedly cut material(paper, light wood)
 - action pic which includes all sharpening equipment used
 - pic of the sharpened edge

Found a well used chisel in the WL shop and sharpened it during the BB20 event.

I sharpened a couple chisels recently. I took photos of the second.

Honestly it was more of a restoration than a simple sharpening because it had been pretty pitted and etched with rust (which I removed in a prior BB)

Requirements to complete:
- must be an wood chisel(not a cold chisel etc.) - Mine is a wood paring chisel.
- must use a whet stone or similar sharpening method without petroleum products - I used 2 diamond stones, 1 water stone, and a leather strop.
- use an appropriate method to remove the bur - Stropped

To get certified for this BB, post the following:

- pic of dull chisel edge or chisel with raggedly cut material(paper, light wood)
- action pic which includes all sharpening equipment used
- pic of the sharpened edge

You can see the first chisel I sharpened on the left beside the one I'm submitting here on the right. It is visibly etched and dull.



I used a Veritas honing guide because it makes the initial grinding very accurate and much faster than doing it by hand alone. A friend of mine had an extra and gave it to me for free. I like to use what I've got. Since I had it in the guide, I ran it through all the stones without removing it until I got to the strop.

I spent about 15 minutes on a 150 grit diamond stone grinding down the flat and the bevel and removing the pitting and etching. I removed a microbevel and returned it to a single bevel (which is a little more labor intensive to sharpen, but much easier to do accurately without a honing guide). After that I did 50 strokes each on the flat and bevel on 400#, 600#, 1000#, an ultra fine grit water stone. I sharpened each grit until the burr was even along the entire edge, and then turned the burr on the next grit up.

First equipment/action shot is the 150/600 diamond stone.


Next is the 400/1000 diamond stone.


Then the ultra fine grit water stone


Finally I stropped 50 strokes on each side, then 25, 12, 6, 3, 2, and 1 on each side to finish. One point of care I learned to take is to tilt the edge up and away from the strop just slightly, so I don't inadvertently round the edge. The give of the leather still polishes it perfectly.



Somewhere along the way I put some scratches in the right side of the bevel (perspective when using it), maybe on a flake of metal that had been removed. But I don't think they're going to be particulary problematic.

(edit) Didn't realize you couldn't see the edge in the last shot, so I added another one. Here's the chisel slicing through a single sheet of newspaper like it's butter. I also shaved a bit with it to impress my wife.



(edit 2) We're trying to set a better standard for documentation, so I'm adding three more photos of the sharpened edge.

For BB consideration.

Mabey it's just how old and rusted up this chisel was, but it was was easyer to sharpen than a knife.

Requirements to complete:
- must be an wood chisel(not a cold chisel etc.)
- must use a whet stone or similar sharpening method without petroleum products
- use an appropriate method to remove the bur


To get certified for this BB, post the following:

- pic of dull chisel edge or chisel with raggedly cut material(paper, light wood)
- action pic which includes all sharpening equipment used
- pic of the sharpened edge

This is a chisel straight from the vendor and it didn't cut smoothly at all. It in fact was some burrs that caused the chisel to have a tendency to dig instead of glide off shavings. A whetstone treatment with two separate grits brought it into a workable condition. I find working back the chisel on the whetstone is effective to remove any burrs developed from sharpening.

Carissa Quisenberry, sharpening a chisel... Did it with a file and a whetstone... Took about 3-4 hours... Phew