Introduction to Sharpening 1F24

I work primarily with wood and metal. I really enjoy making jewelry and welding but I have also been particularly into woodworking at this stage in my career. Initially I used this skill as a supplement to jewelry making and welding, but soon found myself enraptured by the life of trees and the tools used to transform them in their afterlife. I have gotten deep into the world of hand tools. I've moved almost completely away from using power tools. I feel so much more in control of the hand tools, they are so sensitive and offer a lot of feedback. I can feel every fiber of wood I cut through, especially immediately after I sharpen my tools. In every aspect of my work I've been looking into how crafts were done through a historical lens. For woodworking specifically, we have been using chisels since the dawn of our existence. For around 200,000 years we had been using this tool yet somewhere in the last 50 years we decided they don't matter that much. I don't want to dismiss chisels because every tool we use in a wood shop is essentially a chisel. Every tooth in a table saw or bandsaw blade is a chisel, the blades in a jointer are chisels, even some of the sandpaper we use has microscopic chisels in the form of abrasives. I think we are in an age of so much new and exciting technology and technique which is amazing, but it is also important not to forget the fundamentals of our craft.