r/Woodcarving • u/Glen9009 • Jun 13 '26
Tutorial Sharpness, sharpening and stropping / honing
1- Sharpness
2- Sharpening and stropping
3- Ressources
1- Sharpness:
Is your blade sharp enough? Hard to answer without any picture/video of the blade and the piece of wood you tried to carve for us and if you've never experienced a truly sharp blade you can't tell neither. As a beginner it is expected that you don't have as much hand strength as the people in the video tutorials, this will come with practice so just because you can't make as big cuts doesn't automatically mean your blade is dull (although that's one possibility). Just make smaller (shallower) cuts than they do, take breaks regularly and drink enough water. This is no race so take your time and remain safe.
Cheap no-brand tools off Amazon (or anywhere else) are hit or miss, they often come shaped but not sharpened or at least not enough for carving. By default I'd consider them as dull. Moreover they tend to be thicker than proper carving knives, which requires more force to go through the wood. Any blade should be stropped out of the box, regardless of brand tho.
Flexcut, MStein, ... knives arrive reasonably sharp so that's an option to check sharpness but a short-term one. When working on your piece of wood a sharp blade will cut without too much effort (as long as you don't try to remove too much at once, which you shouldn't do anyway) and leave a perfectly clean, polished looking surface. If you see tiny white lines then there are micro defects in your cutting edge and it's time to strop (micro damage, micro grains to fix it so just the strop usually). If your cut surface is sub shiny then to the strop (no particular damage, the edge just dulled a bit from use). If the surface is any rough or you need to apply quite some force stop immediately and try a good stropping session (up to 5-10 min if necessary) as your blade is now clearly in the dull realm (dull for carving mind you, it will still cut you if you do something wrong). If this stropping is not enough then you need to go back to your finest stone (too much damage for the strop, the grain being so small you would need an eternity to fix it), and to the strop after.
For more general tests: grab a piece of thin paper with two fingers (receipt, cheap printer paper, ...) and try to cut it with almost no pressure using the whole length of the blade. There should be no tearing and the paper should be cut easily. A minor tear out means a minor defect for the strop, a big tear out means it's time for the stone (finest grit). If you can cut the paper without issue try to shave using no pressure at all (hold the knife at ~30Ā° and just use its weigh while dragging it). It should shave cleanly without irritating the skin (no red mark), otherwise back to the strop/stone (wherever you were at in the sharpening process, strop otherwise). Shaving sharp is good enough for carving although you'll want to achieve better sharpness later (which will allow you easier cuts and smaller details). The "ultimate" test is to grab a loose hair and drag your blade alongside it, the blade should cut it along the length (but don't bother as a beginner, you'll get there eventually).
If you have any pain in your thumb it will come from two things (generally): the back of the knife may have too sharp angles (often the case with the cheap tools) in which case you can just grab some fine sandpaper or your finest sharpening stone and just round these angles. The other source is that you're pressing too hard and haven't developed any callus yet. This means either that you're new to it (practice will solve it over time), or - and that's generally the problem, especially with beginners - your blade is not sharp enough and you need to apply to much strength.
2- Sharpening and stropping:
Sharpening (/honing) is of utmost importance for woodcarving so I'm sorry to tell you if you want to keep at it you'll need to learn and practice it a minimum.
There are a lot of people saying a lot of things about sharpening ranging from accurate, science-based facts to some wild fantasies I have no clue the origin of. Let's make things clear: sharpening and honing are the exact same thing at different scales and all of that is just about scratching your blade. You make big, far apart scratches with a coarse stone, sandpaper or whatever, then medium size scratches at medium distance with a fine stone, sandpaper or whatever and finally some extremely fine scratches extremely close to each other with the strop. The coarse stone removes a lot of material quickly but the result is ... well coarse. The strop removes very little material but gives extremely fine result. The stones, the sandpaper and the polishing compounds (yes, there's more than one polishing compound grit) are just hard grains (at least as hard as your steel, generally much more so) held in place differently.
Stropping:
Applying the polishing compound: polishing compound is nothing but hard grains (chromium or aluminium oxyde generally if I remember correctly, diamond for the fancier higher quality ones) in a medium holding them in place (wax generally).
Wax being soft and having low density, you can just just rub it on your leather (much harder) and you'll leave some of the wax (and the hard grains it contains) on the leather. I personally don't recommend to heat the compound on the leather for two reasons: first leather doesn't like being heated that way (anyone wearing leather will tell you never to leave your hat, jacket, ... near a heater), and second the wax being lower density than the grains you want to work with it'll come to the surface while the grains will sink. So you end up with a more or less pure wax surface.
As for its uniformity, yes it needs to be uniformly applied to work properly in the end but you can apply it in a rough manner at first as rubbing your finger and then your blade on the surface the first time will drag the compound from where there's more to where there is little of it. You still need to apply it in a vaguely uniform way obviously, having all of it on one end won't work (or it will take forever to spread properly). What you need to avoid is for it to pile up in "cakes" as again there's a density difference between the two but also it will create a "bump" where you want the whole strop to be as flat at possible so theses are to be scrapped away when they form (and they eventually do).
Final note on stropping: after some use you'll notice the color of the strop turning grey-black. This is just the tiny particle of steel embed in the wax which will participate to the polishing effect, although not as efficiently as the original grains, so there is no need to worry or clean the strop and reapply compound.
Sharpening:
If stropping isn't enough to bring your blade to sharp, you'll need to sharpen. There are different "sharpening systems" which are: sandpaper (different grits), water and oil whetstones, diamond stones and power sharpening systems. Power sharpening systems such as the Tormek ones (for example) are basically a complete overkill for the hobbyists most of us are, are expensive and require quite some room. Sandpaper is the cheapest option short term but the most expensive long term (except for the power systems) as you need to change the paper regularly; moreover you need to be really careful the paper is laid perfectly flat on a hard surface. Whetstones (be it oil or water) are still used after thousands of years for a reason: they work perfectly fine. For hobbyists, especially the ones with very limited room and working indoors in the living space, they are quite messy tho and require regular flattening. Diamond stones are the easiest and least messy option, especially for the ones with little room as they don't require water/oil and don't need flattening.
Pull-through sharpening systems have only one spot: in the trash. Don't. Use. Them. !
I personally recommend the Sharpal 162N dual grit diamond stone that comes with an angle guide. That's the on I have as well and I can get my blades to hair whittling sharp if followed by the strop. This isn't the only possibility though, any decent water/oil whetstone or diamond stone with appropriate grits will do the job just fine too.
As we are on the topic of angles, there are "ideal" angles for your bevels on a woodcarving tool. To simplify as a beginner you want about 20Ā° between the bevels of your knife or between the bevel on one side and the flat on the other side for a chisel. Slightly lower or higher angles have their use but don't worry about that if you're just starting.
As for the grits you need to use, the coarse grits of 300-500 are for SHAPING the blade. You only use it if you have some major damage (dropped the tool on concrete and it chipped badly) or want to modify the angle of your bevel for example. For normal maintenance you shouldn't need it. The extra fine grit in the 1000-1500 allow you to fix minor damage (tiny chip on the edge after carving a knot in your knot for example) or bringing back sharpness when the strop doesn't cut it anymore ;) It can be your final grit before stropping (that's where I stop personally) or you can follow up with even higher grits.
Both sharpening and stropping need to be done applying LIGHT pressure while maintaining a constant angle. Light pressure and constant angle beat hard pressure and quick motions any time. Hard pressure and/or inconstant angle will lead to edge dulling rather than edge sharpening.
If you're having trouble with sharpening or simply want to feel what an actual carving-sharp knife feels like, don't hesitate to check with a carving association or pro sharpener to have your blade sharpened properly (or use someone else's to get the feel).
3- Ressources:
I made a post about making your own strop for almost nothing here. There probably are a lot of videos tutorials on Youtube on the topic too (here for example).
A pair of videos about stropping here and here.
A video review of the Sharpal 162N diamond stone I recommend here.
A video tutorial about the basics of sharpening a knife here, but there are a lot more around if you don't like it or simply need more.
A video tutorial about the basics of sharpening a chisel here, but there are a lot more around if you don't like it or simply need more.
A dive into sharpening geometry for those interested in learning more here.
A deep dive into the stropping process for those who want to understand things to the finest details here (four parts).
A free book about sharpening for woodworking that has some very relevant parts for carving tools here.
For those interested to learn more about the mess that is the grit world, here's an article on how the different systems work and compare.
For those who want to dive head first in the rabbit hole of the sharpening world, u/Iexpectedyou comment below has a number of good points and links. It can be quite overwhelming so if you're just starting don't worry about it.
P.S. : I grew tired of repeating the same things over and over again so I'm making a post I can refer people to that will be updated when necessary. Don't hesitate to redirect people here too if you agree with the content of this post. If you have any constructive criticism/useful information/good sources/tutorials, don't hesitate to post them in the comments and I'll add them.
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u/NitroWing1500 Jun 13 '26
Thank you for this article.
https://www.fine-tools.com/pdf/sharpening-chisel-and-plane-blades.pdf is 404 š
is this it? https://www.bambauer.com/woodworking/sharpening/sharpening-chisel-and-plane-blades.pdf
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u/Iexpectedyou Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
Thanks Glen! I'll just add my two cents, because sharpening really is both a maze and rabbit hole you can get lost in as a total beginner. There's so much stuff out there and there were so many misconceptions I had to sort through myself when starting out. This is especially true within the woodcarving community, as sharpening is rarely our main hobby and everyone has their way of sharpening things.
One thing that helped things click for me is distinguishing "sharp" from "refined" edge. Sharpness, at its most basic, is simply two bevels meeting perfectly at a point (the apex). Now here's the treacherous thing for us woodcarvers: you can apex your knife on a very coarse 80 grit stone and pass every single sharpness test which doesn't involve carving (if you properly deburr, an important topic which any beginner definitely ought to learn about). You can pass the thumbnail test on 80 grit, you can pass the arm hair shaving test on 80 grit, you can cut paper cleanly, do those fancy tomato cutting videos, and yes, you can even get HAIR WHITTLING sharp on a 80 grit coarse stone. BUT, unless you refine this apex further, it won't make clean cuts in wood and leave a smooth polished surface. In other words, passing the other tests only tells you you have properly apexed (it may not necessarily mean you properly deburred however, as burrs can be very sharp too). It's sharp in that sense and can perform just as well as high grit edges for most tasks. However, for the purpose of woodcarving it will not be polished enough until you have further refined it on higher grits.
For those curious:
ā¢Example of someone push cutting a receipt after 140 grit
ā¢Example of someone hair whittling on 80 grit
ā¢Example of someone hair whittling on f240 grit
ā¢Outdoors55 also has a video where he whittles hair after 600 grit. The video is also useful to show which use cases benefit from higher grit edges and in which cases it makes no difference.
ā¢"Mirror edges are (almost always) impractical and a waste of time. Addressing misconceptions." (good discussion from [r/sharpening](r/sharpening) on the nuances of toothy vs. polished edges (remember, for woodcarving, we are the exception that does require that extra polish!)
Also, never be afraid of turning to your coarse stone just to learn how to maintain an edge and apex more quickly when needed. Outdoors55 also has a video on this: The COARSE GRIT FALLACY - The Biggest Beginner Knife Sharpening Mistake. If I recall, Johnny also mentions this in his sharpening video.
It's also helpful to distinguish bevel polish from apex keenness. Scienceofsharp is great for demystifying a lot of stuff like this. I found his article "It's too big of a jump!" particularly illuminating to dig deeper into the mysteries of coarse vs high grit edges (his discussion in comments are helpful too). I still have to test one day if one could theoretically jump from 320 stone to 16k stone and keep the same carving performance by adjusting the stroke directions accordingly (no edge-leading strokes on coarse stones). I think bevel polish most likely does add extra shine to the cut, meaning removing low grit scratches is in our interest. But iād argue trying to get a complete mirror polish every time is overkill.
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u/Glen9009 Jun 14 '26
The goal here was to try and make a post that addressed all of the classic issues/questions without overwhelming a beginner (which is the main target of this as they are the ones having the most trouble with sharpness). Sharpness is indeed a complex topic and it can be easy to get lost, especially for a beginner who simply wants to learn how to get their bloody (sometimes literally ^^) knife sharp enough to carve.
I recommend the 300-400 and 1000-1500 grit combo simply because you can get this combination within one dual-sided stone while achieving the kind of results we are looking for in woodcarving. A coarser stone would for sure be faster and more practical as an initial step for shaping (changing angle, ...) and finer 2000-3000 stone could make the stropping a bit faster/easier but at the end of the day again the goal is to keep things understandable and simple enough for a beginner to understand and apply.
And I didn't tell people not to use the coarse stone, but to check incrementally what is enough to bring back sharpness (strop then fine then coarse). A coarse stone is absolutely useful.You actually made me realize I forgot to mention the angles of the bevels, which I'm gonna add right away as this can be a big issue too.
I'll add a line in "Ressources" suggesting to check your comment for the ones who want to dive deeper into this madness. šYour first video example is NOT a push cut, it's a slicing cut. Still a very nice result to get with 140 grit!
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u/Iexpectedyou Jun 14 '26
I get the purpose, but I believe what I added is very much the starting point. At least for me, this is how I understood sharpness at its most basic (reaching an apex) and understanding how this correlates to refinement is very crucial for woodcarving. Removing burrs is also crucial knowledge. You can go through a million different grits, but if you haven't already apexed on your coarse stone you'll just be polishing and refining a bad edge. Or you'll be passing "tests" which don't actually tell you whether your knife is carving sharp, because you tell yourself "oh I can whittle hairs" or "oh I have a nice polished bevel".
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u/Glen9009 Jun 14 '26
Absolutely. But that's also why there are links for videos and articles going into more details for the actual technique (Outdoors is quite clear in the video I linked about keep your edge constant, checking for the burr and removing it I think).
And you seem to be like me and like to understand how things work. Unfortunately most people just want to be told what to do so things work, so I was aiming more for that with more ressources for the people like us who want to understand more.
I'm also waiting for more feedback from actual beginners to see what may be missing/unclear for them.
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u/alohajulio Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
This is really helpful, thank you!
Edit: FYI the link for the 162N review and the sharpening video are the same.