frustation gallore

[the viking]

I am new to carving wood, I just finished my firt ever, the pig. My club has a christmas ornament exchange and I want to have something to exchange. No great deal, I have three more weeks. Yet my new carving set, Hollow walnut core from Mickeals was not the greatest 40 bucks I ever spent. The gauges are weirdley sharpent, they do not make a line nut rather bite into the wood. There was a flat knife with it I just love. I use it more then my knive. Yet it gets dull realy fast and I bought a sharpening stone with it. Same brand. I tried and tried and used some aduld talk to boot, yet it does not want to be sharp again, ok I am no expert at sharpening, to say the least. But some pointers would help me enjoy this great hobby even more.
So please tell me how to sharpen a flat knife (looks like a flat shovel head) with a flat stone please. LIke do I push just one way or up and down, wich way do I push the blad. Things like that.
Thanks

[schwert]

Sharpening is a very long topic. Different tools require various techniques and approaches.

Some tools come in an unsharpened state and before use must be sharpened and honed before they will work properly. Your inexpensive kit may be that way. It is common that kits have tools that need sharpening before use. This is the one thing I consider most compromises a beginners enjoyment of the hobby.

Sharpening in almost all cases requires you to maintain some sort of consistant angle depending on the tool. Your straight knife is the best way to learn compared to gouges.

Look closely at the knife you have. Determine how it was ground. To sharpen it you will either have to follow the angles ground in it or reprofile it to something else. I recommend you start by trying to keep the angles it came with....just get them sharp and honed.

The stone you have will have to be the right one for the job. It cannot be too coarse or too fine depending on the job you are trying to do. If you are resetting the angles you may need a coarse stone, medium stone, and fine stone plus a strop. If you are going to just follow the angles the knife already has you can get away with fewer stones, but you still must hold the angle consistantly and at the right angle and then polish that angle with a finer stone then strop it to get the most out of your knife.

I highly recommend beginners buy a properly sharpened and honed tool in the first place, then they only have to maintain that while learning how to carve and sharpen.

Rick at Little Shavers provides ready to go tools as does Del Stubbs at Pinewood Forge. This is really the best possible approach in my view. Learning to carve and to sharpen and hone is way easier if you can instantly see how a tool was properly prepared in the first place.

Good luck, I am sure others will have some more hints, but without seeing the knife itself I cannot recommend any specific approaches.

[schwert]

I did a search on "sharpening" and found a load of threads. I am new here too, so there may be a sticky thread that others could point you to, but I did find this one with recommendations of books and DVD's that should certainly help.

Sharpening - How long to learn?

[Mitchell]

For a beginner - learning to sharpen tools correctly can be as important to learn as proper carving techniques. It's not necessary to be a good carver, but it sure does help.

You may need to strop instead of using the stone.

[Joy]

Sharpening is a frustrating, long learning curve. Keep reading and practicing. In the mean time you might try a box cutter and just replace the blades. I believe that is Lynn's primary tool.

[squbrigg]

Visit Rick's web site at Little Shavers Wood Carving Supply and you will find all kinds of useful things for new carvers, including a how to on sharpening.

Bob

[Lynn O. Doughty]

Joy said it best....forget all that sharpening stuff till later. Right not you want to have fun. Go buy a non-retractable utility knife, strop it a few times on the backside of your leather belt and start carving. When it gets dull just reverse the blade and start over. Like the others say...sharpening is an art in itself and quite frankly, it's one art I can do without if at all possible. A utility knife is a good solution.

[Irish]

The biggest error that new carvers make in their first sharpening attempts is three fold.

First ... most tend to hold the blade at too steep an angle to create a good bevel for soft woods as basswood or butternut. You are looking for a bevel of about 10 to 12 degrees for soft wood carving and about 20 for harder woods. So check your angle!

As a rule of thumb you should be able to slide only about 5 or 6 sheets of printer paper under the blade body for the 12 degree and about 10 sheets for the 20 degree. I actually do go and get a stack of paper when I need to change angles.

Second ... once you have a good angle on your blade do not go back to your coarse stone! Any other work should be done on your fine stone until what time as you have a real nasty ding or dent in the blade's edge. Returning to the coarse stone removes any and all work that you have already done with the fine stone or strop.

Third ... Newbies usually forget to buy a leather strop and rouge. This is the sharpening tools that removes the tin edge or flange of steel that you worked so hard on the stones to create. Everytime you pull a knife edge across a stone you work a little bit of steel of the edge. That steel becomes a flange area that moves/flips/flaps each time you turn the tool.

For today, if you did not get a strop go get a section of newspaper. I prefer the want ads You can strop a blade on newspaper as paper is very abrasive. The printer's ink in the tightly printed want ad section acts as a lubricant. (This paragraph was added and should have followed the paragraph below ... oops!)

The edge can feel very sharp to your fingers but when you take it to the wood that tin edge is in the way. It is removed by working the tool across the strop. The most experienced carvers will stop often durning any carving session and strop the tools they are using to refreshen the tool edge.

It sounds to me that you still have that tin edge and that is why you tools seem sharp but when in use just are not doing the job. That flap of steel was called a tin edge because a good steel knife with one does not cut any better that a tin knife.

Now depending on your tool set some tools just never take a good sharpening nor hold the edge because they are not of high quality steel. This does not mean that an inexpensive set ... under $50 ... won't last a life time. It means that occassionally you get a set of Cheap Duds that won't even carve your Halloween pumpkin.

I, personnally, would never suggest a utility knife for any beginner carver. I, personnally, never suggest utility knives at all. They are not high quality steel and too prone to snapping at the point. It only takes one snap and flipped point to really cause serious damage!

This style of knife was created for straight down pressure work as cutting lineoum, roofing paper and such. It was not developed for the curved cuts that we make in carving or to ever be used to pry or pop anything.

Beginners tend to use a touch too much pressure on their knives and that adds to the dangers of a utlitiy knife. If you do chose to try one please use caution and know that you are using that utility blade for a purpose for which it was never intended.

And, PLEASE, use safety googles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Susan

[toycarver]

Just a comment on the project 'pig' you chose. It might be, depending on the actual piece, that the pig project was harder to do than one would expect. I have done one about 8" long and 3"wide...it looked easy but there's a whole lot of end grain on the top, and that made it a real pain to carve. Anyway, just wanted to mention that in case it was your experience..hopefully your next project will be more fun.

[Terry Vance]

Welcome to the board.

Everything said so far is correct to my way of thinking. I like Lynn's answer best. I have tried it and love the results. That thing he refers to as "Old Reliable" is great. The only thing he forgot to say was to visit his blog. Here is a link.

OutWestWoodCarving

Just about everything you need to know about getting it done are there. Good luck and happy carving.

Keep carvin'