dull chisel is more dangerous than a sharp one, because you push it harder. The first thing an apprentice learned was not to cut wood but to keep an edge.
You need one coarse stone, one fine stone and a strop of leather glued to a board. That is all a Victorian workshop had, and they built staircases with it.
The routine
Hold the bevel flat on the coarse stone and rock it until you feel it sit. Work in figures of eight until a burr forms along the back. Move to the fine stone and repeat with lighter strokes. Finish with ten pulls on the strop.
Why it matters
A sharp tool is quieter, more accurate and kinder to your wrists. Keeping it sharp is the difference between fighting the wood and working with it.
Sharpen before you start, not when it starts to fail.
¶ Written by
Hal Denby
Field correspondent
Hal walks to most of his stories. He has covered salt roads, lighthouses, forges and the last working thatchers, usually in the rain.
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I baked from a single 1390 household book every week for a year. The bread was better than I expected, and the rules around it were stranger.
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¶ The Thursday letter
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