Spring 2025
June 21-22

Sharpening is a fundamental skill required to build a successful woodworking practice. In this weekend class, we’ll focus on how to sharpen chisels and plane blades, and introduce you to techniques to sharpen a wide variety of hand tools. During the second day of the class, we will demonstrate how to sharpen the curved edge of a gouge.

This two-day course is intended for woodworkers who have started their journey into hand tool woodworking and have begun to acquire planes, chisels, and handsaws. We expect that you’ll already have waterstones (or their equivalent) and some beater tools that you are prepared to use during the course.

Think of this two-day course as a sharpening boot camp. Our goal is to get you to practice sharpening enough in the class that you’ll be confident that you can go home and sharpen your own tools. We’ll look at how you can apply your new understanding to sharpen anything from kitchen knives to hatchets and more! This class also will include a brief demo on saw sharpening. 

Feel free to bring lots of different types of blades to practice on!

This class focuses on teaching mostly freehand sharpening methods, with the aid of hollow grinds produced on a bench grinder. While it's possible to maintain flat grinds on your tools by hand, most find that the bench grinder is a necessary addition to their home sharpening setup.

During the weekend, we will cover the following topics and techniques:

Basics of sharpening

• Understanding metal as a material

• Bevel angles

• Grit sizes

• Types of stones

The bench grinder

• Types of wheels

• Jigs

• How to shape bevels

Sandpaper on glass plates

Using and maintaining waterstones

Restoring old blades

Strops

Card scraper

Tools

Required Tools:

Waterstones: The waterstones we’re recommending here are Naniwa from Chef’s Knives To Go. We have found them to be good and good value for money. Other waterstones in the same grit sizes are fine. If you don’t get all the stones we’ll have a few to share.

• 1000 grit waterstone

• 8000 grit waterstone

Stone trough - to keep waterstones wet and your bench dry. A plastic box with a press seal lid big enough to hold your waterstones,

Blades / Tools:

Plane blade(s) - any or all of block plane, bench plane, shoulder plane or specialty plane

Chisels - ½’’ and above

Recommended Tools:

• 140 grit diamond waterstone flattening plate. 4"x10" DMT stones recommended.

• Gouge or any other curve blade tools

• Kitchen knife

We suggest that you bring a couple of beater blades along. Having a couple of blades to sharpen and resharpen is good. By this we mean tools that you may have found at a yard sale or hiding at the back of the shop that you have no attachment to. It’s better to practice on them, rather than your prize blade from Lie Nielsen or Lee Valley. However, keep in mind new tools also need sharpening before use.

While we can’t guarantee we’ll be able to cover everything, feel free to bring along any other tools that you want help assessing or figuring out how to sharpen. Knives, hatchets, carving tools, turning tools, gardening tools, all are welcome.

Prerequisites

Open to All. There are no prerequisites for this class. Come, learn, and practice!

Class Information and Registration

Class runs from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday in Building 315 at Fort Worden. Map
Please read our What to Expect page for general information about the school.
Please also read our Registration Policy.
Please sign up for the waitlist if the course is full.

Class size: 12
Cost: $385
Materials Charge: $25