sharp/dull blade drawing Sharpening Station small map
Finest abrasives.
Microbevels front and back.
Use a jig.
Copyright (c) 2002-08, Brent Beach
The 50 or so pages that make up this web site were written over a period of 5 years. During that time I used an Intel QX3 microscope to take photomicrographs of both faces of plane blades, right at the edge, during sharpening and during use. While sold as a toy, the QX3 has good enough optical resolution for me to distinguish

  • freshly sharpened edges from dull edges,
  • the scratches left by coarse abrasives from those left by fine abrasives,
  • the changes that occur on both faces of a plane blade during use,
  • the amount of wear on both faces of a plane blade during a standardized test.

The results of that study include:

glass, ... Sharpening

Examination of sharpened blades over 5 years has convinced me that a combination of 3M Micro-abrasives on glass and a simple shop-made jig produces the best quality edges. No other sharpening system will produce edges this good. You will see the photomicrographs in these pages that prove that this combination works. What other sharpening system shows you this?

glass, ... Testing

The ability to sharpen any plane blade to the same fine surface on both faces, combined with a standardized test (all tests have used wood from the same part of the same tree!), means that the test conditions are the same for all blades.

The ability to measure plane blade wear to the ten-thousandth of an inch, using the QX3.

In this section, see photomicrograph test results -- before, during and after -- of over 20 commonly used plane blades, both antique and modern.

You decide which blades are the most durable. (None of that "our blades lasted 5 times longer" stuff.)

glass, ... The QX3.

A description of the Intel QX3 microscope.

Some people might be interested in the microscope itself. This section also contains an introduction to the images of plane blades, knives, razor blades.

glass, ... My other pages.

In addition to plane blades, I also sharpen saws and chisels, and travel.

Links.

Other people who are sharpening and testing plane irons.

Updates.

Check the update list here, or join my Google group to read about updates to this site and ask questions about sharpening and honing.

Contact page.

You can email me from this page.

Translation.

Google brings people from all over the world to these pages. It probably brought you! If you can translate a page or two to some other language please email me.

If you have any ideas on how to manage translations and versions of web pages, that would be helpful as well.

Google will translate these web pages into your language. If you find that some words do not translate well and have better translations, let me know.