Here is where I am at. I have purchased all the materials I need for this project. The wood for the main carcase of the cabinet has been prepped, planed, and is ready to be sized so I can begin construction. However, before I get started, I need to make sure my tools are ready to go. As I outlined in a previous blog, I’m going to try to use hand tools in this project more than I normally would because I feel this is where my interest is taking me. To make sure I can do this well, I need to have sharp tools.
Ask 100 different woodworkers how to sharpen and you will get 100 different opinions of the best (and only) way to sharpen. Ask a fellow woodworker their opinion of the sharpness of your tools and they will say they are “okay” or “pretty sharp but could be sharper.” Needless to say, sharpening is a contentious issue within the craft. For me, sharpening signals two important concepts when it comes to making: (a) practice with a single technique to get good at it, and (b) you will be in a better place if you take time to get ready.
Practicing a single technique
I have taken classes on sharpening, read books on sharpening, and spent an embarrassing amount of money on sharpening equipment. After eight years of woodworking, I am starting to understand what sharp tools means and how to get there. As I mentioned above, there are many different tools and techniques one can use to sharpen. It depends on the tool itself, how much time is available for sharpening, and, like most crafts, how much money you can spend. I am not going to explain my sharpening regimen, nor am I going to review my sharpening tools because I am still far from an expert. What I will say is that to sharpen well, you need to pick a technique and stick with it. And this idea translates across craft and life itself.
Often when you start something new, the amount of information can be overwhelming. In a world of information overload, where media shock and power relationships have shifted in the world of new media, knowing what is true and what is opinion can be difficult (Taras, 2015). We have all heard of fake news. Of course, there are more important topics where the notion of information overload can be destructive, but it applies here too. In the maker world as in the news media world, there are many ways that the online community will tell you to do something. Each one has value to the person supporting it, and each one would probably work.
The reality is that you need to make a decision, select one way of doing something, and get good at it. As your mom used to say, “Practice, practice, practice…” It ends up being about reducing the changing variables and then perfecting how you approach something. For example, in my sharpening, I use the same stones, the same sharpening jigs, and I try to use the same technique to get consistent results. What I have found is that I can get sharper tools when I keep it consistent and practice. This idea repeats itself in many areas of my craft.
Getting Ready
Sharpening is just one element of the preparation of accomplishing this large project and it has its own individual phases I go through as I complete the sharpening task. In Walking the Plank, Ingold (2011) discusses four phases of cutting a piece of lumber for a shelf: getting ready, setting out, carrying on, and finishing off. He uses these phases to help us understand the intricacies that we go through when accomplishing specific tasks. It gives us insight into what we are really doing each time we perform a task. He highlights that no matter how simple the element of making, there are steps we go through, and those steps have many decisions and qualities that we may or may not be aware. Through his explanation, we can understand that each task is complicated. The ideas he lays out for each simple task can also be extrapolated to an entire project.
Whenever I start a new woodworking project, there are a number of elements I must accomplish in the getting ready phase. These are the purchase or acquisition of wood, any new tool purchase or preparation (including sharpening), understanding the plan or creating a plan to work from, and any other pre-work elements that come into play. The reality is that we all do this as makers. As Ingold (2011) has laid out for us, we each “get ready” before we accomplish anything—it is the proper way to proceed to any project. Jumping straight in without any preparation would be foolish and often costly. As we prepare to “set out” (Ingold, 2011), it is the plan that directs our making. The getting ready is the rehearsal and the setting out is the performance (Ingold, 2011, p. 54).
References
Ingold, T. (2011). Walking the plank. In Being alive: Essays on movement, knowledge, and description (pp. 51–62). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Taras, D. (2015). Digital mosaic: Media, power, and identity in Canada. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.