I often get asked how I sharpen chisels and cutting blades to such a keen edge, even those I made @{;> years ago and the answer is simpler tham most people think. Over the years I have made many tools and one of the best was a belt sander while I was General Manager of a fabrication company and this was designed to fit the large industrial sanding belts we had at work as our belt supplier would often throw the odd packet to me for buying from them.

I also made a polishing machine as I also like restoring classic cars and many of the chrome plated parts could be restored instead of stripping and replating them.

I use a fine sanding belt which is well worn and place the back of the chisel flat down to the sanding belt and grind this first. I made a steel jig for holding chisels as about the correct angle and grind the bevel to about the right angle and this keeps the edge square without grinding on a grindstone and overheating the pointy bit as grinding on a stone tends to do.

I regularly cool them with water to keep them as cool as possible to prevent drawing the temper.

Now, many purists may argue about the bevel angle being a couple of degrees off but who cares as to me its semantics and if it bothers them that much then argue among yourselves instead of with me as most people don't really care as long as the chisel or blade has a sharp point and holds its point for as long as possible.

Next I load my buffing wheel with fine buffing paste and I hone my chisel using the buffing wheel as this gives a very fine hone and a very sharp cutting edge for very little work and without overheating the blade, and its very quick. If you catch your cutting tools as they just begin to blunt you can just hone them without having to charpen them again.

My other tool is much simpler, this is merely a small sheet of plate glass which had a box made to surround it, the plate glass is 1/4" thick and just stands proud of the box, either end of the box has two screw threads fitted which are 5mm threads at one end and the other end has a normal wood screw thread and they are simply screwed into the sides of the box.

This was made to fit 1/3rd of a sheet of wet and dry paper and it is clamped over the glass, I use 1200 grit and simply give it a squirt of light sewing machine oil and is excellent for tickling blades in the field, the op is cut to fit over the glass and tuck under the clamps which hold the lid in position for going into the spares box.