Sharpening Japanese Woodworking Tools Part 1: Introduction

It is well with me only when I have a chisel in my hand
Michelangelo 1475-1564

This is the first in a series of 30 articles that describe the sharpening procedures your humble servant uses and recommends for Japanese plane and chisel blades. Links to the other 29 articles are located at the end of this one.

The purpose of these articles is to share with our Beloved Customers reliable techniques for sharpening and maintaining the tools we sell consistent with standard practice among advanced Japanese professional woodworkers.

Each article in this series describes separate but related aspects of sharpening Japanese woodworking tools, especially chisels, plane blades, and kiridashi knives. While 30 articles sounds like a lot, it is certainly not enough to cover all details of this first and most important woodworking skill. No doubt Beloved Customer could add chapters based on your own experiences.

If it seems less than concise, please understand that it is written with enough detail so even the first-time sharpener can benefit from it, but with enough advanced techniques to stimulate the interest of even jaded professionals.

Of course, if I wrote only for the professionals, then those new to the process would be left confused and frustrated. Likewise, if I wrote only for Beloved Customers new to sharpening Japanese tools, then the professionals reading it would begin to make snoring noises (highly intelligently, of course). I hope you can appreciate the conundrum and forgive the resulting compromises.

Unlike most of what is available on the internet, these techniques are not based on irresponsible rumors expounded as fact in smelly, troll-infested forums, articles in magazines written by self-educated journalists, or silly videos on NoobTube.

I didn’t invent the techniques described herein, but they are nonetheless my techniques, the results of hard experience working with, and lessons learned from, professional craftsmen in Japan over a period of some 30 years, sometimes working as a professional woodworker, and other times working as an employee of two of Japan’s largest “super” general contractors.

This series of posts has 4 objectives: To save Beloved Customer (1) time, and (2) money, and to make your Japanese blades (3) sharper, and (4) cut longer. These benefits are worth obtaining if you are serious about woodworking, as professional woodworkers must be, but the requisite attention to detail and manual skills may not come easily to some.

Indeed, you may need to unlearn bad habits, and develop new habits, skills and muscle memory in order to achieve these objectives. This is not a 90 minute process but will take weeks, maybe months. It certainly took me years to completely unlearn my bad habits and develop the necessary skills. I am confident these writings will make the process more efficient for you, if you follow them. I only wish I had the benefit of this information all in one place back in the day.

Of course these are not the only viable solutions available. Many woodworkers are self-taught nowadays and learn how to sharpen from books, magazines, videos, and classes, and have developed methods that work well for them. I am not minimizing those successes, merely proposing methods to further advance their skills.

However, be aware that several of the techniques described herein may directly contradict the teachings of the Holy Woodworking Gurus oozing virtue received from the Giant Pixie and who make a living scribbling, making videos, and teaching classes about woodworking.

These guys achieve popularity and financial success by helping amateurs get better results quickly after reading only a few pages in their $29.99 book, or attending their 2-hour class. To maintain their popularity and income, the techniques some (but not all) of them promote must be dumb-as-dirt simple, and often involve shortcuts and gimmicks yielding “instantaneous gratification,” without the need to learn real skills. Nothing wrong with that, but is it good enough for you?

Unlike amateurs satisfied with superficial results, professionals need real skills that yield consistent results long-term.

Don’t be shocked, but I am not offering 90 minute gratification in exchange for your money.

There are no “sponsors “of this blog. There are no advertisements, period, so this blog generates no direct income.

I have no “click goals, ” or “SEO strategy” to deploy; I don’t care if you “like” me, “subscribe” to my BoobTube channel (I don’t have one), or buy access to my online tutorials (don’t do those either). In fact, this website doesn’t require you to register, it doesn’t use Google Analytics, it doesn’t embed cookies in your computer or attempt to mine your data in any way.

The advice I offer is free, but if you prefer gimmicks to lifetime skills, the techniques described here are not for you. I am sure such Gentle Readers can find some brightly-colored bubble-wrap to keep themselves entertained.

Do I have a profit motive? Nope, this information is free. I am not a sneaky corporate shill trying to sell books, magazines, videos, video games, advertising space, banners, VPN services, home security systems, sharpening stones, or heaven forfend, powertools with laser sights. I have never been lent or given a tool in exchange for a review, nor have I been wined, dined, laid or paid to write good things about crappy tools.

Over the years, my professional needs and curiosity led me to purchase literally hundreds of planes and chisels made by many blacksmiths and companies. The operative word here is “purchased.” With my own money. Not a single one was ever given or loaned to me. Some I later sold, the good ones I kept. The two points I want to make are: (i) I put my money where my mouth is; and (ii) I have no financial conflict of interest.

I have several motivations for writing and sharing this information. One is selfish convenience. Over the years, people have asked me how to sharpen Japanese tools, and I have explained the process in letters, emails, and in person many times. This series of articles is essentially a collection of my scribblings on the subject over several decades, and is intended to save me time explaining processes.

Another motivation is to ensure that the people who buy the small number of hand-forged tools we sell (our “Beloved Customers”) know how to properly sharpen and maintain them, so that those tools will provide long, productive, high-performance service. Our tools deserve to be properly maintained.

Some who experience difficulties with Japanese woodworking tools blame the tools, but in many cases the problem lies not in defective tools but rather stems from an insufficient understanding of basic sharpening principles and lack of experience. Without exception everyone with aspirations to be an excellent woodworker must go through that learning process at least once. Your humble servant hopes these scribblings will enlighten more than confuse.

But my primary motivation for making this series of articles available at no cost is to fulfill a promise I made to freely share with others the techniques I learned from the many carpenters, joiners, blacksmiths, tool makers and professional sharpeners in Japan who taught me. In exchange for this free information all I ask of you, Beloved Customer, is an open mind and eager hands. Please, don’t cut either of them.

The adventure will continue in Part 2! But be forewarned, the price of admission may double. (ツ)

YMHOS

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please click the “Pricelist” link here or at the top of the page and use the “Contact Us” form located immediately below.

Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, fascist facebook, or thuggish Twitter and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. If I lie may the bird of paradise fly up my nose.

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Links to Other Posts in the “Sharpening” Series

Welcome to the C&S Tools Blog!

In this post your humble servant will introduce this blog’s purpose, my qualifications and motivations for writing it, and a description of the sort of subjects to be discussed.

The blog’s purpose is simply to share sound information regarding woodworking techniques, woodworking hand tools, and construction work with an emphasis on Japanese hand tools and techniques

Although woodworking and construction are universal human activities, Japan has unique history and traditions that have produced woodworking and building techniques many find interesting. Indeed, most Japanese woodworking hand tools are different in some ways from their Western counterparts, and must be setup, maintained and used differently.

Unfortunately there is a lot of blather on the internet and even in print on these subjects that, pound for pound, is as valuable as road apples and smells as sweet. I intend to provide a more professional viewpoint.

The content of this blog will not be a regurgitation by an amateur of things learned or plagiarized from books, magazines, NoobTube videos, or heaven forfend, stinking, troll-infested woodworking forums, but will be based on real-world professional experience.

What relevant professional experience do I have, you ask? To begin with, I worked as a joiner, cabinetmaker and carpenter for many years. I have worked in the construction industry most of my life as a contractor and direct employee of some of Japan’s largest general contractors. You could say I know the trade.

Much of what I know about woodworking and tools I learned directly from the professionals I worked with and tool makers whose opinions I sought out, most of whom have gone to the big lumberyard in the sky. You could say I had good teachers.

I no longer use tools on the jobsite, but I am still involved in the Japanese construction industry. I have lived, studied and worked in Japan off and on for around 30 years since first coming here 46 years ago. You could say I know the neighborhood.

I have a masters degree in architecture and engineering from a prestigious Japanese university and am bilingual in both written and spoken English and Japanese languages, so you could say I know how to research and ask intelligent questions about technical subjects and understand the answers.

But what about the quality of the information on this blog? In this question Gentle Reader’s blazing intelligence shines forth! You must judge the quality for yourself, but here are a few things you should keep in mind when doing so.

We live in a confusing era of fake internet experts, absolutely corrupt journalistic standards, and blogs and publications authored by lazy opportunistic shills. Is this evaluation too harsh? I don’t think so. But whether opinion or so-called scientific research, a wise man will consider the writer’s motivations which inevitably skew the focus, quality, and sometimes even the veracity of information he presents, especially in the case of blogs.

I think there are three common and not mutually exclusive motivations for people to write blogs. One is a desire to share useful, interesting information. I like to think this is my motivation.

Another motivation is a desire to be popular and make money in the process. For these gadflies, success is partly measured by the number of “clicks,” “likes,” and subscribers they get, and of course the acreage of banners and adverts on their webpage. Both their self-worth and income relies on infrastructure controlled by monstrously unethical companies like Google, facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Patreon, and the funding of viewers and sponsors. I pity them.

I have no problem with people touting a product or service or belief. Who knows, the information may be useful, so long as it doesn’t include too many lies or exaggerations and the touter is honest about his relationship with the item or service he is touting, as I am with my products. Sadly, too many bloggers, BoobTubers, and “Influencers” don’t reveal sponsor contributions in cash or goods but pretend their opinions and reviews are unbiased. Such behavior is indisputably unethical. I think a famous French soldier expressed my thoughts about such dishonest people well when he said: “I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal-food-trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!”

C&S Tools will never accept sponsorships, contributions, banners, or freebies. We have no SEO goals. Those who want to read the things I have to share must find this blog without guidance from the Silicon Valley decepticons.

Perhaps the third blogger motivation is a disease called “writer’s dysentery.” This horrific affliction makes the victim feel sick in their guts unless they write and post something, anything, everyday regardless of relevance or quality. Many scribbler-types suffer from this frightful disease and practically gush like a trash pump. Thankfully, your humble servant is not infected with this malodorous malady. I spend too many hours every working day writing boring but necessary documents for my company and clients and the construction projects I run, so I feel no compulsion to spend my free time writing for free.

Therefore, I will not subject Gentle Reader to diarrhetic descriptions of my vacation, hobbies, car, boat, motorcycle, kids, grandkids, pets, my grandkid’s pets, retirement plans, medical adventures, or rambling step-by-step descriptions of landfill-ready woodworking projects imitating those eternally recycled in woodworking periodicals, subjects which make up 80% of the content of most blogs.

Now that it’s clear what I won’t write about, let’s look at what I will.

The craftsmen that make and use the tools that are a major subject of this blog are located far from most English-speaking readers, both culturally, technologically, and as the crow flies. Communication with these people on technical subjects can be especially challenging since the most experienced of them have no social media presence, zero computer skills, and almost as many smartphones. To most of them, a Fax machine is high-tech sorcery. I am not exaggerating.

During my years living and working in Japan I have built relationships with these craftsmen and learned much from them. I will share that knowledge with Gentle Readers and Beloved Customers.

As a construction-industry professional in Japan, I routinely evaluate and hire Japan’s top general contractors and subcontractors for my Client’s projects. We will share some of those stories too (non-disclosure agreements permitting).

Some of the how-to subjects we intend to discuss will include tool setup, sharpening, maintenance and proper usage, as well as how to make some tools. And of course, woodworking techniques.

Regarding the frequency of posts, your humble servant dislikes wasting valuable time with pointless drivel, so I will post only what I think is worthwhile, measured by my standards and your requests, time permitting. No schedule commitments.

The one thing I do wholeheartedly promise is that the content of this blog will be worth more than you pay for it. You won’t find a better deal anywhere at twice the price.

Wanted: Single grey cave orc looking for freaky, scratchy love. Must like cold, damp, dark holes and enjoy bat wings marinated in Tabasco sauce.

If you have relevant questions, please ask. If you have suggestions or corrections, all are welcome. But to those who would use the internet’s anonymity to morph into snapping orcs or bellowing trolls, I say Go back to the Shadow!

All others I welcome with bunny hugs.

Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please click the “Pricelist” link here or at the top of the page and use the “Contact Us” form located immediately below.

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