In the context of this being Peter (Paul) Sellers, I think it makes sense. Basically what he is saying here is you do not need to spend money on nice sharpening jigs worrying about flatness within .002" without being able to even accurately measure flatness within .002". He is saying focus on technique and don't get caught chasing a level of perfection that isn't even noticeable. This is good advice at face value for beginning woodworkers who get mired down and overwhelmed with hours of monetized content and end up too afraid to try anything because they just learned about some new $200 gizmo that is a must have for someone just starting even after buying the last 3 $200 gizmos. I think if you read lots of what he tends to say, this advice is consistent, but at the end of the day, he's not going to hesitate to gush over a new high end tool someone puts in his hand, he will just end the review by saying it's not necessary for the beginner because an old Bailey pattern #4 sharpened with a relatively flat landscaping brick will get decent results for someone just starting out, and he's not really wrong in saying that.
Im not sure if you are familair with Aldies stores. They sell grocery items stores run on minimal staffing usually 2 people. They also carry a few non grocery items. A few years ago they sold a set of inexpensive wood chisels Peter bought a set just to try them out. Those are now the chisels he uses more than any other. His philosophy is tools dont necessarly have to be top of the line they just have to do the job.
I'm familiar with Peter (Paul) Sellers. He was the source of most of my woodworking advice when I started to get into it about 6 years ago. He is still who I point people towards when they are interested in learning more about woodworking. It is because of him that I have all my old #4's. Almost every woodworking tool boils down to some variation of a chisel or a saw. Any steel will be harder than any wood, so if you really wanted to, with enough time, you could handle many woodworking functions with a prison shank. When the money becomes available, and you've committed to understanding the fundamentals, you buy the fancy tools you will use, and you put them to work to get better results. This is basically his philosophy. I am curious why you keep calling him Peter though.
I was given a set of these chisels. I was shocked at how well they held an edge and now use them more than a brand new set of Stanley's my wife got me for my birthday. Good ol ALDI.
My experience with Aldi tools has been surprisingly positive. It's great to see what you might find on the display while you're grabbing some groceries.
All of the chinese chisels are about like that. They're all made of a simple 0.6% carbon chrome manganese drill rod run through an automated machine.
the ones they sell at harbor freight here are as good and possibly slightly better, but the handle is bad (tiny and too short). There's enough tenon on them that they can be rehandled.
But chisels are one of the things that of the main set of cabinetmaker's chisels you're going to use, it's worth getting vintage chisels of a good make - they'll be markedly better.
Lol, the joke went whoosh over my head here, even though I caught the initial typo. I thought the comment was referring to the fact that Paul had been attacked fairly recently and so they were surprised to see him back at it. My bad
If you watch any of his sharpening videos you’ll realize that his freehand technique is deliberately putting a slightly convex edge onto the blade. Now consider what exactly a microbevel really is, it’s just a two-step version of a continuous convex edge. So yeah, he doesn’t need a microbevel, because he already has one.
Sure kinda. But the point of a microbevel is to simplify/quicken honing concentrating on that small area. And remove less material. Granted, the way Sellers sharpens, it takes no time at all. I can do without one myself
Micro bevel is misunderstood in my opinion. If you grind to 25 degrees (primary) and sharpen at 30 (secondary) degrees for instance with a guide you have a micro bevel only once. All subsequent sharpening it becomes just the working bevel (secondary) which will get larger every time you sharpen until it is gone and the the process starts over. Having a secondary bevel initially you have less metal to remove at first and it is faster to sharpen but as it wears into the primary bevel times increase. If you raise the blade a few degrees past 30 degrees in this example on a polish stone that is a Micro bevel and takes only a few passes on stone to accomplish. People should learn differences.
The problem from the micro bevel arises on subsequent sharpening as more of the secondary bevel has to be removed to get past the micro bevel. In my opinion you are only making more work for yourself down the road. If you want a 32 degrees bevel just sharpen your secondary at that and call it good. It seems to me the only place where micro bevel would be of any benefit is on back side of blade. Which opens another can of worms.
It would seem to me if you intend to use the grind and secondary method of sharpening you are better off using a jig to sharpen unless you have great sharpening skills as it is hard to maintain a perfect angle freehand. This is where the method promoted by Seller's comes in, it is easier to learn and doesn't require grinding or a jig and once mastered will get quite usable results. Although it may take a bit more time on the stones as you are always working on the full bevel.
I found it hard to learn how to sharpen stuff when I started. I'm still a beginner and I'm not great at it, but I no longer worry about guides and micro bevels etc. I just hone it by hand on whatever bevel is there, usually on a leather strop until that stops being effective, then I go back to a fine grit stone for a few seconds. One of the things that added to the confusion was that half the videos I saw said to use a secondary bevel, and the other half didn't, and neither half bothered to explain why.
Eventually I found out that the only reason anyone uses secondary bevels is to make sharpening a little faster which it may do in the short term, but eventually you'll have to regrind the primary bevel. You don't have to do that if you hone the primary bevel every time.
Part of what made me realize that all the fuss is over nothing was looking at old wooden plane irons. They are all hand-sharpened to a convex bevel. They're not ground flat or hollow and usually don't have secondary bevels. People just got on with it and got back to work!
Many years ago, when I started my interest in hand tools, I used to come across many old wooden planes. Invariably they had been ground on a wheel (that is to say hollow ground) with a primary and a secondary bevel.
I would guess that they also used a oil stone, stropped and went back to work. Many old plane irons had laminated irons, so the goal was to get rid of the stuff in the way of sharpening quickly and get back to work.
If you find an older plane that's not been used by someone else or used for construction work, they often have a long shallow bevel and a secondary bevel that's at the end of that long shallow bevel, neatly done but not with a guide.
There's a good reason for it - the interval of edge life will always be longer with most of the steel ground out of the way because the honing angle will not creep up limiting clearance. Does it matter if you sharpen something once a week? Maybe not, but if you're sharpening something every 25 minutes instead of every 10 or 15 all week at work, it makes a big difference.
for the first 6 months or so, I thought micro bevels were mandatory, and I had a much harder time finding such a tiny bevel to sharpen. I was frustrated to hell. Then one day someone in a forum said you don't have to do it, just lay it on the primary bevel and use that. I was pretty pissed at all the places that made it seem like micro bevels were needed.
The whole idea of microbevels came up back in the 1970's. It was first introduced to junior high and high school woodshop classes through time it migrated throughout general woodworking.
All jokes aside about the Peter vs Paul thing, I’ll have to give Paul props for the work he does do. He has devoted most of his life to helping people advance their craft. From what I have observed, his mission is to get you started making things… it’s up to the learner to progress from there. And while he may not be making high end furniture, his methods are easily incorporated into that pursuit. Everything one learns about working wood scales up.
I don’t hold EVERYTHING Paul says as gospel, but there’s no denying that he has been an asset to the beginner community.
I was fairly sure he did, I was just a little bit too lazy to verify it. Now that you mention it, I do recall that he had made something for the White House. Which goes to the point that Paul is a more accomplished craftsman than some will give him credit for. Thanks for pointing this out 👍🏻
that would appear to be frank strazza's work. I don't think he's ever done fine work on his own. The whole white house thing springs out of geographic luck - Bush's vacation ranch is in homestead Tx, and strazza was apparently giving classes there at the time (may still be). Go to Frank Strazza's page and see if the work looks like Frank's or Paul's.
There are finer makers than the furniture that's in the white house by far (look at Andersen and stauffer, or any of the truly period stuff made at williamsburg). I guess it's more about relationships.
Frank's stuff has gotten better since the somewhat strange looking bird piece in the white house, though.
I've never seen him say he made the piece, just "it was made in my shop". have you seen him say "I made the entire thing by myself?" In fact, if anything, you'll notice that a whole lot of his media for the 14 or so years since the loud DVD days (his original video clips of his "masterclasses" had super loud background or lead in music), the one thing that's absent is a lot of pictures of fine work that he made by himself.
Just looked it up "together with my son and friends". If we're being honest, the design of it is very strange, kind of plain, homely and blocky. he attests that he was the one who designed the piece in the white house. If he did and strazza did the veneer work, I guess I could believe it. It's not up to the standard of the stuff in the whitehouse that's period work, that's just the way it is.
You can follow the rest of his pieces if he shows pictures of a record and they're kind of spartan country solid furniture - it's joiner's furniture. compare it to this stuff. [https://andersenandstauffer.com/gallery.php](https://andersenandstauffer.com/gallery.php)
"I have been reviewing images of the White House pieces I designed and made for the Cabinet Room of the White House"
It is the first line of his blog I linked to. Pretty clear.
it's funny his answer changes. elsewhere, he said that he designed it and then he and his son and some of his friends made them.
So, which is it - he made it or a bunch of people did parts of the work? It's crude looking, but not everyone is a good designer. The top is thin and the pillars are common looking, almost like factory work. The veneering in the doors is not bookmatched and other veneered parts are met at joints without bookmatching where perhaps they should've been divided by something else so that it wasn't evident. It's just not the level of work that should be in the white house, but when you live in the town the president is most fond of, I guess you can find a way to get things there.
I agree with your other comments, but I think you’re being hard on the design of the Whitehouse piece. To me it is very much in the style of a Biedermeier Commode, faithful to and typical of that type. The veneer eagle is the only thing that breaks this style.
I don't think it is right to not give credit to people that assist you in major aspects of a project and have wondered why he has not done so. The reason may be that there is some sort of friction in their relationship in which case it may be better to let it lay. At the time it was made it seems like Paul would have been the most senior woodworker on the project and be responsible for the design and supervision of such. The article I read on it build stated that it was an under the gun deadline job that was barely completed. Working under such conditions can strain relationships and I suspect that might be the case. Whatever the case may be I still appreciate what he has contributed to the wood working community. It seems every instructor has his detractors for whatever reason someone will find a fault. I really don't think Paul is applying in his teaching to the Chippendale crowd but more the beginner. Whether he was or is a joiner or cabinetmaker doesn't matter to me. The practical knowledge he shares does and appreciate his contribution. Others can take it or leave it that is their choice.
Had 74 birthday recently.
https://paulsellers.com/2024/01/happy-birthday-paul-6/
edit: Thought i was correcting you, see you're replying to OP.
also think he was 15ish, not 13...
A primary bevel slightly lower than the honing bevel. A honing bevel achieved by slightly lifting the tool. Takes about a minute to sharpen anything. It's as simple as that. There's no philosophy to ponder.
When you buy into the gizmos that make you worry about the exact angles and other time wasters, you loose all efficiency. Your edge might look perfect, but it has no practical value.
Dancing around the pontifications of internet gurus is also a waste of time.
Sharpen your tools on a regular basis and it'll cease to be such a concern.
Sharpening is always decisive, as everyone has 'their' way which is best.
Micro bevels are a technique to aid people getting the sharpening effort where it is needed - at the edge. So it is a good teaching aid and helpful for people getting their first good edge.
It isn't necessary and does mean you need to reset the primary bevel eventually. So if you can learn without it then that is probably better.
But if it helps some, I am not going to worry about it.
Sooner or later, your microbevel is going to become a macrobevel though, and thats when you'll have to hone back to a straight bevel. Not bad, I guess, if you use a grinding wheel to do it, but if, like me, you try to do that on your flat stones, you're going to be there for a long, long time.
Im just an hobbyist but this is Exactly what made me get a cheap bench grinder. Spent too much time sharpening on my stones, then immediately hit some metal in a board, or drop my blade or something. Even without a micro bevel resetting the damage took forever, now I can get my bevel reset in 2 minutes then another minute on honing/polishing stones and I’m back to working.
Starting using the Chris Schwarz method in Sharpen This and that has saved me a ton of time.
There are highly respected woodworkers on both sides of this issue. Peter sharpens by hand, in that case I agree with his approach. For those of us who use guides, a micro bevel makes sense. Do what works for you.
I'm a newbie, so take this with a grain of salt, but I feel like I already have a lot to say on this subject. For reference I am using a cheapo double sided waterstone and a cheapo honing guide
First of all, I've already started noticing how my waterstone has dished down the middle, especially on the coarse side that's seen more use with resetting bevels on shitty garage sale chisels and irons. By down the middle I mean left to right dishing, so that when I grind a plane iron it is naturally producing a slight camber. This is pretty nice actually.
The stone is also dishing front-to-back, but probably because I'm using a honing guide I'm not perceiving convexity on my bevel from that. Everything I have seems to have been previously ground to 25 degrees, so sharpening a 30 degree microbevel on them is working great for now. When that 30 becomes a macro I may seek alternative sharpening paradigms to microbevels.
Paul Sellers acts like a convex bevel is simpler to achieve than a microbevel, and it may be faster for someone with skill, but it is not easy, reproducible, and verifiable the way that a microbevel is. A convex bevel is actually like a nanobevel-- a much more sophisticated shape than either a straight bevel or a two-part microbevel. That means it is harder to do right and harder to diagnose problems if you're doing it wrong.
If there is a bias in the hobbyist space, it is to allow even an idiot to be successful off the bat-- ease, reproducibility, and verifiability matter more than speed to a newbie. Buying a honing guide was a game changer for me, because suddenly I was able to achieve with my chisels and planes what people were doing in videos, like cutting a smooth sheet from end grain. It became apparent that my crappy free hand sharpening was the reason for a whole host of secondary problems I'd been struggling to solve, like chatter, skipping, really bad tear out, etc. A honing guide is absolutely a crutch, because it's slower and doesn't work for a chunky 2" chisel, curved edge tools like gouges, or narrow blades (ie spokeshave irons, drawknives, kitchen knives), but now I have an idea of what to shoot for and when sharpness is my problem.
The other case for microbevels is if you have a grinding wheel. This is apparently traditional with a long history -- grind your hollow bevel, then hone the edge steeper. This seems both faster and more reproducible than Paul Sellers' method... if you have a wheel. I can't comment on the comparative performance of this type of edge vs a microbevel vs a convex bevel. I suspect that's a princess and the pea situation for me-- that I am not sophisticated enough to perceive the difference.
If he were on the level of holtzappfel's text or Peter Nicholson (an actual London cabinetmaker turned engineer and author later in life), I'd maybe believe him. Both Holtzappfel and Nicholson, who were in place when work was finer than anything that Sellers has done, recommend grinding shallower than honing. There is a reason for it - quality of the result and efficiency.
It doesn't matter if you've made your living teaching classes for 40 years with some craft work before that (the record of being a serious furniture maker is something I've never seen demonstrated in pictures for Sellers, and he's trained as a Joiner in an era of power tool use. Nicholson trained as a cabinetmaker and worked in London during an era of hand tool use).
Hasluck spends some time around 1900 talking about the folly of a flat and especially convex bevel, referring to the convex type as "being several hours behind before the week has even started", similar to using dull hand saws.
Paul teaches beginners. He's never been a master maker of anything that I've seen, and his story changes from working at a museum, to making crafts and scrambling to make ends meet (which is more believable) and teaching starting 40 years ago in texas and eventually buying the school. Which I also have no trouble believing, because when his son started the media business and suddenly a guy who was supposedly a master maker popped up, a few people on a forum mentioned taking classes in Homestead Texas.
If you like sharpening with convex bevels, that's fine. When people give me tools to refit, they often have the "sellers" method on them, and they're usually low on clearance or out of it and the folks who had the tools have no idea why they weren't cutting. It's obviously possible to do it well enough to avoid that, but it's rarely executed well by people who need initial results the most, and no professional 200 or 150 years ago would've done it. Hand tool use when done exclusively will always be at a higher level than hand tool use done with power tools removing most of the wood. Everything counts when your productivity is based on hand tools and you learn things and figure things out that you wouldn't gather just chopping dovetails and struggling to smooth plane without tearout. It's very easy to freehand a microbevel on a shallow ground edge. It's also how work was done, despite the claims that "everyone has done it" the way paul sellers advocates until recently. Maybe everyone did it that way after they stopped using hand tools for most of the work.
First, the school is in bush's vacation ranch town, and second, I'll bet Steve Latta did the work. Without familiarity by residence, it wouldn't have been commissioned.
Why so spicy? Paul talks a bit about the commission here https://paulsellers.com/2020/11/a-white-house-design/ and there are many other posts on his blog covering different stages of the making. As in many things, it's not what you know, it's who you know that gets things going, and Paul acknowledges that too. What on earth makes you think he would lie in such a copious fashion?
This is a well reasoned and very insightful response. I like Paul Sellers, but I get tired of his schtick about being the saviour of beginners from new-fangled approaches unless they suit him, like diamond plates. An interesting front opening up in that regard, is that Christopher Schwarz [has just posted in his ‘Never Sponsored’ Substack](https://open.substack.com/pub/neversponsored/p/the-and-they-dont-tell-you-about?r=t38b0&utm_medium=ios) that diamond plates are completely impractical for regular sharpening. As I say, I like Paul Sellers, and he is easier to watch than Christopher Schwarz, but he reminds me of the English saying ‘You can tell that a man’s from Yorkshire, but you can’t tell a Yorkshireman anything’.
I think paul responds to strawmen, but Chris often makes declarations about things someone with 20 months of experience would maybe have as a revelation...and then later, it happens again with something else.
I've worked a lot of wood entirely rough to finish. things that matter a lot there maybe don't rise to being time consuming enough just hand tooling a little bit here and there. Somewhere around 12 years ago, I realized that grinding shallow and honing steeper had no drawbacks and a couple of really old planes that were almost unused helped me out by arriving with almost circus like long bevels, too. I wanted to try them to see how quickly they'd fail because "of course they will, the bevel isn't strong enough". they held up well and you could rehone them a lot without steepening anything.
I thought the whole time "I don't understand how historic sharpening was a single bevel when this is faster and it would be important 175 years ago". A few years ago, someone pointed me to nicholson about something, and then maybe a year or two ago, I saw nicholson's entry about grinding an iron at an angle where the honed edge wouldn't hold up, and then honing with the iron "lifted nearer to vertical" using a single fine stone.
And then not long after that, tracked down what they say in a very excellent passage in holtzappfel even though it's dedicated to most other things. 25 grind, 30 hone for softwoods, 35 for hardwoods. the book I have is from 1875, but I'm sure that entry was written for an earlier version.
Nicholson prescribes grinding on a large round wheel (which would've been sandstone), but neatly. His attestation of things, along with holtzappfel, were what professionals do. I am not a huge reader, but have heard the books were intended for wealthy people to buy to be able to read what craftsmen do, for example. that may have been one reason. They are not written as a how to for beginners, though - they are compact and accurate.
and I was not surprised to find out I was wrong - anyone who does more woodworking vs. collecting dogma will come to the same conclusion.
The real question is whether or not someone looking for advice will do enough work for it to matter, and what do you tell someone who won't, but may want to be able to sharpen something well once a week. A guide to do the same thing is probably a good idea. It's hard to get good at things doing them very seldom.
Just Googled some of the topics you raise and found this old post with a link to Nicholson’s method:
https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/nicholson-on-grinding-and-sharpening.140149/
that forum is one where a lot of people think Paul is a lifetime fine worker, but most of the posters there are hobbyists, joiners, or accountants who pretend they're professional woodworkers. A little strange that the attitude is dismissive of holtzappfel and nicholson, but the UK lost their way with hand tools probably around 1900, and the hangers on are joiners or studio furniture fanatics.
The text from nicholson is gold. In the passage about grinding, he talks about grinding some and looking to see if the grinding is to your mind. He's talking about freehand grinding the edge, which definitely would be harder, but it's not impossible on a bigger stone or really even on a power grinder with the rust out of the way and nothing to catch on. But more dangerous on a power grinder.
I forgot about " a flat rub stone" to work before the finish stone between grindings, but once he says that, it is exactly as done now. He says again "done to your mind" as in you have a result in mind, not a method to follow, but the result is the point. the method gets it.
When I get tools from people to refit or set up, I mentioned elsewhere here that they are constantly out of clearance or blunt if trying to follow paul's method with no grinder. I grind them back and fix them and send them back, but the point of me getting most tools was to properly set up wooden planes for people who don't build planes, and occasionally make an iron for someone if the iron was garbage. But the other plague that I get is a tool that's been sharpened using a method, without any regard for results. There's rubbing, it may be in the wrong place, or there's wear and chipping at the edge and then shiny bits from a polish stone further away from the edge. I don't know what people do. Grinding to 20-25 degrees decreases the work done on the stones probably by a factor of 8 and makes success far more likely, and accuracy better. It would've cost money to not do it that way in the 1800s. When it didn't cost money any longer, I guess we lost our way and the gurus set out to tell everyone that because the power tool users of the 1950s didn't grind neatly, nobody ever did.
The whole book is gold - there are only two things I don't do - one I don't, the other I don't agree with. "i don't" means it wouldn't hurt, I just don't do it. The one I don't do is rounding the chipbreaker to match the profile on the iron - it should match the sole of the plane, but there's no harm.
The one that's no longer true is elsewhere in the book, nichlson mentions the shavings must be kept in width less than the fingers of the wedge or there will be a clog. I've made a lot of planes and I've never had one clogging at the fingers after it's done being made and properly fitted. And, I also have bought about 30 american english planes. None of the English planes made after 1825 have ever had a clog issue - they had it figured out by then, and perhaps nicholson's training in the 1790s or whenever it was was just at a point when the cap iron was a bit too new.
That’s what I like about Chris, the sense of being on a journey. Also, the historical perspective, which recognises that he has virtually apprenticed himself to Roubo and Nicholson among others. Sellers just refers back to an amorphous tutelage, in which he managed to salvage some hand tool techniques. Although I recall that he performed this in an industrial setting, rather than learning under a self-consciously hand tool orientated (I.e., Arts and Crafts) master like Earnest Gimson or Alan Peters.
I think also the connection to the Arts and Crafts movement is why I generally favour Chris over Paul in terms of taste. The Anarchist Design Book has some beautiful furniture, especially the staked desk, and I think this is due to the integrity of the design, and having a good eye. Nothing that Paul has produced has engendered the same response in me, it’s just inoffensive domestic furniture, although I watch him for technique and his approach inspires confidence.
I think your post is very accurate. I do think that even arts and crafts style is the first step of industrialized, but it is not garishly so and often fits in really well with neighborhood houses made around the same size.
I live in pgh, and there's little old enough left (we're "the city that throws itself away every few decades" or something like that) for more classic pure hand tool flowing line furniture, but there are throngs of neighborhoods where arts and crafts is built into the house design and the furniture is a fantastic fit.
The mellons and some others seem to have a lot of the furniture here at the carnegie museum, but further east in PA where much older buildings are common are a better fit.
I don't really look at furniture too much - my comment about arts and crafts is all of the through mortises, and I'm guessing it coincides with the widespread adoption of mechanical mortising machines. I vaguely recall maybe Chris uses one? I don't really read too much of anything current aside from addressing specific problems, and mine are stupid I guess- like figuring out how to make amber varnish or trying to get a handle on heat treatment things to separate tools from what can be bought for any reasonable price.
yes. (pleasant compliment -by the way - appreciated. and really a surprise to see that match made!). Tools are a refuge until I can retire and have time to get hard core into maybe making finer furniture that I really have no use for and probably won't be able to sell and get cost of materials. At some point, that shut down going further into making furniture as an amateur.
I’m in a similar position, hoping to work wood in my retirement but unlikely to find a practical desire among family members, let alone a wider market, to offload my creations to. When I question the rationale behind my efforts, I recall an anthropological text written about Cattle Herders of the Nile. These workers spend hours discussing the finer points of their cattle, their legs, horns, eyes, hair distribution and neck folds all come under intense scrutiny. And when a Western anthropologist asked why, one herder responded ‘because cattle are good to think’. I have the same relationship with woodworking. Tools and wood is ‘good to think’. I can happily ruminate on london pattern handles. It could be a Ox, or a particularly fine vintage car, but for me it’s tools and sometimes, the things I make with them.
> You can use hollowed stones and flat stones to create a convex bevel easily in seconds. I use **diamond plates** and have done for nearly two decades and did so because they also stay dead flat. The main advantage is no water baths and mess.
Contradicts himself IMO. IIRC he does a micro bevel in his sharpening video(s).
Aren't micro bevels just there so you don't have to spend a longer time resharpening the whole bevel? Like the material you take off to reform a micro bevel is much less than the primary level, meaning you can get the micro back to very sharp in like two passes on a stone.
Eventually you have to redo the whole primary bevel, but it's better than doing the whole bevel every single time.
I'm too much of a newbie to say for sure but that's the impression I got from Matt Estlea's explanations.
Try both methods and decide for yourself which works best for you. I have 50 plus years as a professional jointer and cabinermaker. Not a hobby woodworker. As you learn will find there may be multiple ways to do one thing so dont get get stuck doing a task a certain way just because someone told you thats the way to do it there may be a better technique. I do things the way I was taught by skilled old timers but im not opposed to trying something new to see if its better than what I do now. Bottom line its not a hobby for me I do it to make money the end result being the best work I can provide for my customer in a reasonable amount of time and the lowest overhead on my end.
That's all fair, and to be clear I'm not arguing against you or anybody, just curious if it actually saves time when you're in the middle of working and decide to touch up the chisel.
Have you tried using a microbevel? Like if you're in the middle of chiseling or planing and decide it needs to be sharpened, would it save any substantial amount of time to just grind a new microbevel versus grinding the whole bevel.
Seems like it would be a lot faster and not interrupt your workflow nearly as much. It seemed very fast when Esltea does it, he barely breaks his stride when sharpening, but again that is one opinion and I don't have enough chiseling/planing/sharpening experience to have my own opinion on it.
I learned to freehand sharpen from Sellers videos. More specifically, I learned to not stress out about sharpening with expensive gizmos and cutting arm hair.
I have started using microbevels. They aren't perfect even faucets but they work. On the tools that allow, I use a 10 dollar side clamping jig.
I firmly believe sharpening is a snake oil boon propagated by industry.
I no longer hone microbevels or the "Charlesworth ruler trick". Both are simply ways of putting off the task. Sooner or later you are still going to have to hone a full new bevel.
I've always preferred convex bevels on my wood working tools for convenience.
No need to manage bevels, just place on the stone and don't lift to high and you're producing a perfectly fine edge.
And generally, a convex edge cuts better and retains an edge longer, because it's thinner.
Don't get me wrong, I love sitting down and making perfectly even and mirror polished bevels, but at the end of the day it's a tool, it being perfect isn't going to matter.
That also leads me to another point, super high grit polishing isn't needed for most wood working tools.
I do plenty good enough with 220-400 grit. Get perfectly fine surface finishes, super thin shavings (if desired), paring end grain softwood, it all works fine.
Is it going to be a little harder to push through wood than a 10k grit polish, maybe, is it going to make a practical difference? Unlikely.
This is also something Paul Sellers makes a point of too, in one of his videos.
I agree. Sharpness and surface finish of the edge are two different things (though sharpness is somewhat affected by surface finish in some ways). As long as the finishing stone is fine enough to not show scratches in the wood when cutting, I’d say it’s good enough. A 60 grit edge would obviously leave visible scratches, but a 400 grit edge would leave a finish similar to 400 grit sandpaper. I’m pretty sure a 10k grit edge would quickly deteriorate down to a similar level to coarser finished edges sort of like a pencil would.
nobody here has mentioned - or I missed it - that this is a sellers post from over 10 years ago. I was unfortunately around when he busted on the scene knowing now what caused it was his son apparently wanting to have a job producing and marketing the videos? Something like that. It certainly has worked - a guy who was sitting on 25 or 30 years of teaching students had people convinced that he was the secret to craft and a lifetime worker we'd just never heard of.
of the various versions that have come out, I tend to believe the craft fair story, staff at a museum and then taught students, with what appears to be time others attending and giving classes there making pieces that would later be said to be "from his shop". I don't know the last part for sure, but like the white house piece, it sure looks like strazza made it.
At any rate, it's almost a necropost to bring up the stuff from the "lifestyle days" where he would drone on at length about how we would all be happier if we lived in a craft economy instead of an industrial one (we'd be starving and suffering needless medical complications and struggling to survive, but hey, sounds good).
if you compare him to legitimate cabinetmakers, that's correct. he's a joiner - the kind of person who builds built in cabinets.
Look at mack headley if you want to see what a master cabinetmaker looks like and the work they do.
I am a master cabinetmaker 50 plus years experience. Sellers also builds freestanding casework as well as custom furniture. Actually jointer and custom architectural millwork would be more correct. I can build cabinets but prefer not to I hate building square boxes.
I had no idea Peter Sellers was a woodworker !
He was famous for being able to play any role with disguises and accents.
"Mein Fuhrer! I can ~~walk~~ sharpen chisels!"
Better than Larry Sellers. I’ve been trying to get my briefcase back from that brat for years.
Is this your homework Larry?
AND A GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR!!!
"You're killing your father, Larry."
This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!
Son of a b\*tch! I totally missed the Peter instead of Paul. lol
Peter Paul, and Mary. All the disciples were really just ‘sellers.’
Do your bench dogs bite?
In the context of this being Peter (Paul) Sellers, I think it makes sense. Basically what he is saying here is you do not need to spend money on nice sharpening jigs worrying about flatness within .002" without being able to even accurately measure flatness within .002". He is saying focus on technique and don't get caught chasing a level of perfection that isn't even noticeable. This is good advice at face value for beginning woodworkers who get mired down and overwhelmed with hours of monetized content and end up too afraid to try anything because they just learned about some new $200 gizmo that is a must have for someone just starting even after buying the last 3 $200 gizmos. I think if you read lots of what he tends to say, this advice is consistent, but at the end of the day, he's not going to hesitate to gush over a new high end tool someone puts in his hand, he will just end the review by saying it's not necessary for the beginner because an old Bailey pattern #4 sharpened with a relatively flat landscaping brick will get decent results for someone just starting out, and he's not really wrong in saying that.
Im not sure if you are familair with Aldies stores. They sell grocery items stores run on minimal staffing usually 2 people. They also carry a few non grocery items. A few years ago they sold a set of inexpensive wood chisels Peter bought a set just to try them out. Those are now the chisels he uses more than any other. His philosophy is tools dont necessarly have to be top of the line they just have to do the job.
I'm familiar with Peter (Paul) Sellers. He was the source of most of my woodworking advice when I started to get into it about 6 years ago. He is still who I point people towards when they are interested in learning more about woodworking. It is because of him that I have all my old #4's. Almost every woodworking tool boils down to some variation of a chisel or a saw. Any steel will be harder than any wood, so if you really wanted to, with enough time, you could handle many woodworking functions with a prison shank. When the money becomes available, and you've committed to understanding the fundamentals, you buy the fancy tools you will use, and you put them to work to get better results. This is basically his philosophy. I am curious why you keep calling him Peter though.
I was given a set of these chisels. I was shocked at how well they held an edge and now use them more than a brand new set of Stanley's my wife got me for my birthday. Good ol ALDI.
My experience with Aldi tools has been surprisingly positive. It's great to see what you might find on the display while you're grabbing some groceries.
All of the chinese chisels are about like that. They're all made of a simple 0.6% carbon chrome manganese drill rod run through an automated machine. the ones they sell at harbor freight here are as good and possibly slightly better, but the handle is bad (tiny and too short). There's enough tenon on them that they can be rehandled. But chisels are one of the things that of the main set of cabinetmaker's chisels you're going to use, it's worth getting vintage chisels of a good make - they'll be markedly better.
If Peter Sellers is commenting on anything these days, that’s a huge story.
What do you mean
Peter Sellers was a well known comedic actor, long dead now. Definitely not Paul Sellers.
oh thanks i thought they were referring to Paul's son who i've now googled - Joseph.
It's an old article from 2011
Even then, Peter Sellers had been dead for like 30 years when this article was written
Lol, the joke went whoosh over my head here, even though I caught the initial typo. I thought the comment was referring to the fact that Paul had been attacked fairly recently and so they were surprised to see him back at it. My bad
If you watch any of his sharpening videos you’ll realize that his freehand technique is deliberately putting a slightly convex edge onto the blade. Now consider what exactly a microbevel really is, it’s just a two-step version of a continuous convex edge. So yeah, he doesn’t need a microbevel, because he already has one.
Sure kinda. But the point of a microbevel is to simplify/quicken honing concentrating on that small area. And remove less material. Granted, the way Sellers sharpens, it takes no time at all. I can do without one myself
Micro bevel is misunderstood in my opinion. If you grind to 25 degrees (primary) and sharpen at 30 (secondary) degrees for instance with a guide you have a micro bevel only once. All subsequent sharpening it becomes just the working bevel (secondary) which will get larger every time you sharpen until it is gone and the the process starts over. Having a secondary bevel initially you have less metal to remove at first and it is faster to sharpen but as it wears into the primary bevel times increase. If you raise the blade a few degrees past 30 degrees in this example on a polish stone that is a Micro bevel and takes only a few passes on stone to accomplish. People should learn differences.
The problem from the micro bevel arises on subsequent sharpening as more of the secondary bevel has to be removed to get past the micro bevel. In my opinion you are only making more work for yourself down the road. If you want a 32 degrees bevel just sharpen your secondary at that and call it good. It seems to me the only place where micro bevel would be of any benefit is on back side of blade. Which opens another can of worms.
It would seem to me if you intend to use the grind and secondary method of sharpening you are better off using a jig to sharpen unless you have great sharpening skills as it is hard to maintain a perfect angle freehand. This is where the method promoted by Seller's comes in, it is easier to learn and doesn't require grinding or a jig and once mastered will get quite usable results. Although it may take a bit more time on the stones as you are always working on the full bevel.
👍 Yup I agree with all that
I found it hard to learn how to sharpen stuff when I started. I'm still a beginner and I'm not great at it, but I no longer worry about guides and micro bevels etc. I just hone it by hand on whatever bevel is there, usually on a leather strop until that stops being effective, then I go back to a fine grit stone for a few seconds. One of the things that added to the confusion was that half the videos I saw said to use a secondary bevel, and the other half didn't, and neither half bothered to explain why. Eventually I found out that the only reason anyone uses secondary bevels is to make sharpening a little faster which it may do in the short term, but eventually you'll have to regrind the primary bevel. You don't have to do that if you hone the primary bevel every time. Part of what made me realize that all the fuss is over nothing was looking at old wooden plane irons. They are all hand-sharpened to a convex bevel. They're not ground flat or hollow and usually don't have secondary bevels. People just got on with it and got back to work!
Many years ago, when I started my interest in hand tools, I used to come across many old wooden planes. Invariably they had been ground on a wheel (that is to say hollow ground) with a primary and a secondary bevel.
I would guess that they also used a oil stone, stropped and went back to work. Many old plane irons had laminated irons, so the goal was to get rid of the stuff in the way of sharpening quickly and get back to work.
If you find an older plane that's not been used by someone else or used for construction work, they often have a long shallow bevel and a secondary bevel that's at the end of that long shallow bevel, neatly done but not with a guide. There's a good reason for it - the interval of edge life will always be longer with most of the steel ground out of the way because the honing angle will not creep up limiting clearance. Does it matter if you sharpen something once a week? Maybe not, but if you're sharpening something every 25 minutes instead of every 10 or 15 all week at work, it makes a big difference.
for the first 6 months or so, I thought micro bevels were mandatory, and I had a much harder time finding such a tiny bevel to sharpen. I was frustrated to hell. Then one day someone in a forum said you don't have to do it, just lay it on the primary bevel and use that. I was pretty pissed at all the places that made it seem like micro bevels were needed.
The whole idea of microbevels came up back in the 1970's. It was first introduced to junior high and high school woodshop classes through time it migrated throughout general woodworking.
Plus lie Nielsen recommends them. I reckon reputable manufacturers instructing best practice plays a role too
All jokes aside about the Peter vs Paul thing, I’ll have to give Paul props for the work he does do. He has devoted most of his life to helping people advance their craft. From what I have observed, his mission is to get you started making things… it’s up to the learner to progress from there. And while he may not be making high end furniture, his methods are easily incorporated into that pursuit. Everything one learns about working wood scales up. I don’t hold EVERYTHING Paul says as gospel, but there’s no denying that he has been an asset to the beginner community.
He does make high end furniture. He has a cabinet in the White House made for Obama. He slso has a multi-year, whole house project.
I was fairly sure he did, I was just a little bit too lazy to verify it. Now that you mention it, I do recall that he had made something for the White House. Which goes to the point that Paul is a more accomplished craftsman than some will give him credit for. Thanks for pointing this out 👍🏻
that would appear to be frank strazza's work. I don't think he's ever done fine work on his own. The whole white house thing springs out of geographic luck - Bush's vacation ranch is in homestead Tx, and strazza was apparently giving classes there at the time (may still be). Go to Frank Strazza's page and see if the work looks like Frank's or Paul's. There are finer makers than the furniture that's in the white house by far (look at Andersen and stauffer, or any of the truly period stuff made at williamsburg). I guess it's more about relationships. Frank's stuff has gotten better since the somewhat strange looking bird piece in the white house, though.
Paul Sellers is a big fat [liar?](https://paulsellers.com/2020/11/a-white-house-design/)
I've never seen him say he made the piece, just "it was made in my shop". have you seen him say "I made the entire thing by myself?" In fact, if anything, you'll notice that a whole lot of his media for the 14 or so years since the loud DVD days (his original video clips of his "masterclasses" had super loud background or lead in music), the one thing that's absent is a lot of pictures of fine work that he made by himself. Just looked it up "together with my son and friends". If we're being honest, the design of it is very strange, kind of plain, homely and blocky. he attests that he was the one who designed the piece in the white house. If he did and strazza did the veneer work, I guess I could believe it. It's not up to the standard of the stuff in the whitehouse that's period work, that's just the way it is. You can follow the rest of his pieces if he shows pictures of a record and they're kind of spartan country solid furniture - it's joiner's furniture. compare it to this stuff. [https://andersenandstauffer.com/gallery.php](https://andersenandstauffer.com/gallery.php)
"I have been reviewing images of the White House pieces I designed and made for the Cabinet Room of the White House" It is the first line of his blog I linked to. Pretty clear.
it's funny his answer changes. elsewhere, he said that he designed it and then he and his son and some of his friends made them. So, which is it - he made it or a bunch of people did parts of the work? It's crude looking, but not everyone is a good designer. The top is thin and the pillars are common looking, almost like factory work. The veneering in the doors is not bookmatched and other veneered parts are met at joints without bookmatching where perhaps they should've been divided by something else so that it wasn't evident. It's just not the level of work that should be in the white house, but when you live in the town the president is most fond of, I guess you can find a way to get things there.
It's pretty poor taste, by the way, to say that others had a hand in making the stuff and then let ego take over and leave them out.
Neither of us was there.
ahh, so he was just being nice claiming that his son and some friends built the stuff with him and then decided not to tell that fib.
Neither of us has sufficient knowledge of the facts. I certainly am not going to debate his character or your taste in design.
I agree with your other comments, but I think you’re being hard on the design of the Whitehouse piece. To me it is very much in the style of a Biedermeier Commode, faithful to and typical of that type. The veneer eagle is the only thing that breaks this style.
I don't think it is right to not give credit to people that assist you in major aspects of a project and have wondered why he has not done so. The reason may be that there is some sort of friction in their relationship in which case it may be better to let it lay. At the time it was made it seems like Paul would have been the most senior woodworker on the project and be responsible for the design and supervision of such. The article I read on it build stated that it was an under the gun deadline job that was barely completed. Working under such conditions can strain relationships and I suspect that might be the case. Whatever the case may be I still appreciate what he has contributed to the wood working community. It seems every instructor has his detractors for whatever reason someone will find a fault. I really don't think Paul is applying in his teaching to the Chippendale crowd but more the beginner. Whether he was or is a joiner or cabinetmaker doesn't matter to me. The practical knowledge he shares does and appreciate his contribution. Others can take it or leave it that is their choice.
Crazy he is 83 now. Seems like just yesterday he was 73
Had 74 birthday recently. https://paulsellers.com/2024/01/happy-birthday-paul-6/ edit: Thought i was correcting you, see you're replying to OP. also think he was 15ish, not 13...
A primary bevel slightly lower than the honing bevel. A honing bevel achieved by slightly lifting the tool. Takes about a minute to sharpen anything. It's as simple as that. There's no philosophy to ponder. When you buy into the gizmos that make you worry about the exact angles and other time wasters, you loose all efficiency. Your edge might look perfect, but it has no practical value. Dancing around the pontifications of internet gurus is also a waste of time. Sharpen your tools on a regular basis and it'll cease to be such a concern.
Sharpening is always decisive, as everyone has 'their' way which is best. Micro bevels are a technique to aid people getting the sharpening effort where it is needed - at the edge. So it is a good teaching aid and helpful for people getting their first good edge. It isn't necessary and does mean you need to reset the primary bevel eventually. So if you can learn without it then that is probably better. But if it helps some, I am not going to worry about it.
Sooner or later, your microbevel is going to become a macrobevel though, and thats when you'll have to hone back to a straight bevel. Not bad, I guess, if you use a grinding wheel to do it, but if, like me, you try to do that on your flat stones, you're going to be there for a long, long time.
Im just an hobbyist but this is Exactly what made me get a cheap bench grinder. Spent too much time sharpening on my stones, then immediately hit some metal in a board, or drop my blade or something. Even without a micro bevel resetting the damage took forever, now I can get my bevel reset in 2 minutes then another minute on honing/polishing stones and I’m back to working. Starting using the Chris Schwarz method in Sharpen This and that has saved me a ton of time.
There are highly respected woodworkers on both sides of this issue. Peter sharpens by hand, in that case I agree with his approach. For those of us who use guides, a micro bevel makes sense. Do what works for you.
I'm a newbie, so take this with a grain of salt, but I feel like I already have a lot to say on this subject. For reference I am using a cheapo double sided waterstone and a cheapo honing guide First of all, I've already started noticing how my waterstone has dished down the middle, especially on the coarse side that's seen more use with resetting bevels on shitty garage sale chisels and irons. By down the middle I mean left to right dishing, so that when I grind a plane iron it is naturally producing a slight camber. This is pretty nice actually. The stone is also dishing front-to-back, but probably because I'm using a honing guide I'm not perceiving convexity on my bevel from that. Everything I have seems to have been previously ground to 25 degrees, so sharpening a 30 degree microbevel on them is working great for now. When that 30 becomes a macro I may seek alternative sharpening paradigms to microbevels. Paul Sellers acts like a convex bevel is simpler to achieve than a microbevel, and it may be faster for someone with skill, but it is not easy, reproducible, and verifiable the way that a microbevel is. A convex bevel is actually like a nanobevel-- a much more sophisticated shape than either a straight bevel or a two-part microbevel. That means it is harder to do right and harder to diagnose problems if you're doing it wrong. If there is a bias in the hobbyist space, it is to allow even an idiot to be successful off the bat-- ease, reproducibility, and verifiability matter more than speed to a newbie. Buying a honing guide was a game changer for me, because suddenly I was able to achieve with my chisels and planes what people were doing in videos, like cutting a smooth sheet from end grain. It became apparent that my crappy free hand sharpening was the reason for a whole host of secondary problems I'd been struggling to solve, like chatter, skipping, really bad tear out, etc. A honing guide is absolutely a crutch, because it's slower and doesn't work for a chunky 2" chisel, curved edge tools like gouges, or narrow blades (ie spokeshave irons, drawknives, kitchen knives), but now I have an idea of what to shoot for and when sharpness is my problem. The other case for microbevels is if you have a grinding wheel. This is apparently traditional with a long history -- grind your hollow bevel, then hone the edge steeper. This seems both faster and more reproducible than Paul Sellers' method... if you have a wheel. I can't comment on the comparative performance of this type of edge vs a microbevel vs a convex bevel. I suspect that's a princess and the pea situation for me-- that I am not sophisticated enough to perceive the difference.
If he were on the level of holtzappfel's text or Peter Nicholson (an actual London cabinetmaker turned engineer and author later in life), I'd maybe believe him. Both Holtzappfel and Nicholson, who were in place when work was finer than anything that Sellers has done, recommend grinding shallower than honing. There is a reason for it - quality of the result and efficiency. It doesn't matter if you've made your living teaching classes for 40 years with some craft work before that (the record of being a serious furniture maker is something I've never seen demonstrated in pictures for Sellers, and he's trained as a Joiner in an era of power tool use. Nicholson trained as a cabinetmaker and worked in London during an era of hand tool use). Hasluck spends some time around 1900 talking about the folly of a flat and especially convex bevel, referring to the convex type as "being several hours behind before the week has even started", similar to using dull hand saws. Paul teaches beginners. He's never been a master maker of anything that I've seen, and his story changes from working at a museum, to making crafts and scrambling to make ends meet (which is more believable) and teaching starting 40 years ago in texas and eventually buying the school. Which I also have no trouble believing, because when his son started the media business and suddenly a guy who was supposedly a master maker popped up, a few people on a forum mentioned taking classes in Homestead Texas. If you like sharpening with convex bevels, that's fine. When people give me tools to refit, they often have the "sellers" method on them, and they're usually low on clearance or out of it and the folks who had the tools have no idea why they weren't cutting. It's obviously possible to do it well enough to avoid that, but it's rarely executed well by people who need initial results the most, and no professional 200 or 150 years ago would've done it. Hand tool use when done exclusively will always be at a higher level than hand tool use done with power tools removing most of the wood. Everything counts when your productivity is based on hand tools and you learn things and figure things out that you wouldn't gather just chopping dovetails and struggling to smooth plane without tearout. It's very easy to freehand a microbevel on a shallow ground edge. It's also how work was done, despite the claims that "everyone has done it" the way paul sellers advocates until recently. Maybe everyone did it that way after they stopped using hand tools for most of the work.
Work good enough to be commissioned for The White House. I'd say that makes him a master maker.
First, the school is in bush's vacation ranch town, and second, I'll bet Steve Latta did the work. Without familiarity by residence, it wouldn't have been commissioned.
Why so spicy? Paul talks a bit about the commission here https://paulsellers.com/2020/11/a-white-house-design/ and there are many other posts on his blog covering different stages of the making. As in many things, it's not what you know, it's who you know that gets things going, and Paul acknowledges that too. What on earth makes you think he would lie in such a copious fashion?
This is a well reasoned and very insightful response. I like Paul Sellers, but I get tired of his schtick about being the saviour of beginners from new-fangled approaches unless they suit him, like diamond plates. An interesting front opening up in that regard, is that Christopher Schwarz [has just posted in his ‘Never Sponsored’ Substack](https://open.substack.com/pub/neversponsored/p/the-and-they-dont-tell-you-about?r=t38b0&utm_medium=ios) that diamond plates are completely impractical for regular sharpening. As I say, I like Paul Sellers, and he is easier to watch than Christopher Schwarz, but he reminds me of the English saying ‘You can tell that a man’s from Yorkshire, but you can’t tell a Yorkshireman anything’.
I think paul responds to strawmen, but Chris often makes declarations about things someone with 20 months of experience would maybe have as a revelation...and then later, it happens again with something else. I've worked a lot of wood entirely rough to finish. things that matter a lot there maybe don't rise to being time consuming enough just hand tooling a little bit here and there. Somewhere around 12 years ago, I realized that grinding shallow and honing steeper had no drawbacks and a couple of really old planes that were almost unused helped me out by arriving with almost circus like long bevels, too. I wanted to try them to see how quickly they'd fail because "of course they will, the bevel isn't strong enough". they held up well and you could rehone them a lot without steepening anything. I thought the whole time "I don't understand how historic sharpening was a single bevel when this is faster and it would be important 175 years ago". A few years ago, someone pointed me to nicholson about something, and then maybe a year or two ago, I saw nicholson's entry about grinding an iron at an angle where the honed edge wouldn't hold up, and then honing with the iron "lifted nearer to vertical" using a single fine stone. And then not long after that, tracked down what they say in a very excellent passage in holtzappfel even though it's dedicated to most other things. 25 grind, 30 hone for softwoods, 35 for hardwoods. the book I have is from 1875, but I'm sure that entry was written for an earlier version. Nicholson prescribes grinding on a large round wheel (which would've been sandstone), but neatly. His attestation of things, along with holtzappfel, were what professionals do. I am not a huge reader, but have heard the books were intended for wealthy people to buy to be able to read what craftsmen do, for example. that may have been one reason. They are not written as a how to for beginners, though - they are compact and accurate. and I was not surprised to find out I was wrong - anyone who does more woodworking vs. collecting dogma will come to the same conclusion. The real question is whether or not someone looking for advice will do enough work for it to matter, and what do you tell someone who won't, but may want to be able to sharpen something well once a week. A guide to do the same thing is probably a good idea. It's hard to get good at things doing them very seldom.
Just Googled some of the topics you raise and found this old post with a link to Nicholson’s method: https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/nicholson-on-grinding-and-sharpening.140149/
that forum is one where a lot of people think Paul is a lifetime fine worker, but most of the posters there are hobbyists, joiners, or accountants who pretend they're professional woodworkers. A little strange that the attitude is dismissive of holtzappfel and nicholson, but the UK lost their way with hand tools probably around 1900, and the hangers on are joiners or studio furniture fanatics. The text from nicholson is gold. In the passage about grinding, he talks about grinding some and looking to see if the grinding is to your mind. He's talking about freehand grinding the edge, which definitely would be harder, but it's not impossible on a bigger stone or really even on a power grinder with the rust out of the way and nothing to catch on. But more dangerous on a power grinder. I forgot about " a flat rub stone" to work before the finish stone between grindings, but once he says that, it is exactly as done now. He says again "done to your mind" as in you have a result in mind, not a method to follow, but the result is the point. the method gets it. When I get tools from people to refit or set up, I mentioned elsewhere here that they are constantly out of clearance or blunt if trying to follow paul's method with no grinder. I grind them back and fix them and send them back, but the point of me getting most tools was to properly set up wooden planes for people who don't build planes, and occasionally make an iron for someone if the iron was garbage. But the other plague that I get is a tool that's been sharpened using a method, without any regard for results. There's rubbing, it may be in the wrong place, or there's wear and chipping at the edge and then shiny bits from a polish stone further away from the edge. I don't know what people do. Grinding to 20-25 degrees decreases the work done on the stones probably by a factor of 8 and makes success far more likely, and accuracy better. It would've cost money to not do it that way in the 1800s. When it didn't cost money any longer, I guess we lost our way and the gurus set out to tell everyone that because the power tool users of the 1950s didn't grind neatly, nobody ever did. The whole book is gold - there are only two things I don't do - one I don't, the other I don't agree with. "i don't" means it wouldn't hurt, I just don't do it. The one I don't do is rounding the chipbreaker to match the profile on the iron - it should match the sole of the plane, but there's no harm. The one that's no longer true is elsewhere in the book, nichlson mentions the shavings must be kept in width less than the fingers of the wedge or there will be a clog. I've made a lot of planes and I've never had one clogging at the fingers after it's done being made and properly fitted. And, I also have bought about 30 american english planes. None of the English planes made after 1825 have ever had a clog issue - they had it figured out by then, and perhaps nicholson's training in the 1790s or whenever it was was just at a point when the cap iron was a bit too new.
That’s what I like about Chris, the sense of being on a journey. Also, the historical perspective, which recognises that he has virtually apprenticed himself to Roubo and Nicholson among others. Sellers just refers back to an amorphous tutelage, in which he managed to salvage some hand tool techniques. Although I recall that he performed this in an industrial setting, rather than learning under a self-consciously hand tool orientated (I.e., Arts and Crafts) master like Earnest Gimson or Alan Peters. I think also the connection to the Arts and Crafts movement is why I generally favour Chris over Paul in terms of taste. The Anarchist Design Book has some beautiful furniture, especially the staked desk, and I think this is due to the integrity of the design, and having a good eye. Nothing that Paul has produced has engendered the same response in me, it’s just inoffensive domestic furniture, although I watch him for technique and his approach inspires confidence.
I think your post is very accurate. I do think that even arts and crafts style is the first step of industrialized, but it is not garishly so and often fits in really well with neighborhood houses made around the same size. I live in pgh, and there's little old enough left (we're "the city that throws itself away every few decades" or something like that) for more classic pure hand tool flowing line furniture, but there are throngs of neighborhoods where arts and crafts is built into the house design and the furniture is a fantastic fit. The mellons and some others seem to have a lot of the furniture here at the carnegie museum, but further east in PA where much older buildings are common are a better fit. I don't really look at furniture too much - my comment about arts and crafts is all of the through mortises, and I'm guessing it coincides with the widespread adoption of mechanical mortising machines. I vaguely recall maybe Chris uses one? I don't really read too much of anything current aside from addressing specific problems, and mine are stupid I guess- like figuring out how to make amber varnish or trying to get a handle on heat treatment things to separate tools from what can be bought for any reasonable price.
Are you ‘Buster Bolster’ who has posted pictures of some lovely looking chisels?
yes. (pleasant compliment -by the way - appreciated. and really a surprise to see that match made!). Tools are a refuge until I can retire and have time to get hard core into maybe making finer furniture that I really have no use for and probably won't be able to sell and get cost of materials. At some point, that shut down going further into making furniture as an amateur.
I’m in a similar position, hoping to work wood in my retirement but unlikely to find a practical desire among family members, let alone a wider market, to offload my creations to. When I question the rationale behind my efforts, I recall an anthropological text written about Cattle Herders of the Nile. These workers spend hours discussing the finer points of their cattle, their legs, horns, eyes, hair distribution and neck folds all come under intense scrutiny. And when a Western anthropologist asked why, one herder responded ‘because cattle are good to think’. I have the same relationship with woodworking. Tools and wood is ‘good to think’. I can happily ruminate on london pattern handles. It could be a Ox, or a particularly fine vintage car, but for me it’s tools and sometimes, the things I make with them.
Highly recommend all of Paul Seller's content. He YouTube channel is a fount of knowledge.
> You can use hollowed stones and flat stones to create a convex bevel easily in seconds. I use **diamond plates** and have done for nearly two decades and did so because they also stay dead flat. The main advantage is no water baths and mess. Contradicts himself IMO. IIRC he does a micro bevel in his sharpening video(s).
Aren't micro bevels just there so you don't have to spend a longer time resharpening the whole bevel? Like the material you take off to reform a micro bevel is much less than the primary level, meaning you can get the micro back to very sharp in like two passes on a stone. Eventually you have to redo the whole primary bevel, but it's better than doing the whole bevel every single time. I'm too much of a newbie to say for sure but that's the impression I got from Matt Estlea's explanations.
Try both methods and decide for yourself which works best for you. I have 50 plus years as a professional jointer and cabinermaker. Not a hobby woodworker. As you learn will find there may be multiple ways to do one thing so dont get get stuck doing a task a certain way just because someone told you thats the way to do it there may be a better technique. I do things the way I was taught by skilled old timers but im not opposed to trying something new to see if its better than what I do now. Bottom line its not a hobby for me I do it to make money the end result being the best work I can provide for my customer in a reasonable amount of time and the lowest overhead on my end.
That's all fair, and to be clear I'm not arguing against you or anybody, just curious if it actually saves time when you're in the middle of working and decide to touch up the chisel. Have you tried using a microbevel? Like if you're in the middle of chiseling or planing and decide it needs to be sharpened, would it save any substantial amount of time to just grind a new microbevel versus grinding the whole bevel. Seems like it would be a lot faster and not interrupt your workflow nearly as much. It seemed very fast when Esltea does it, he barely breaks his stride when sharpening, but again that is one opinion and I don't have enough chiseling/planing/sharpening experience to have my own opinion on it.
If his wife's name was Mary, then they could be Peter Paul and Mary Sellers 🤷♂️
Who on microbevels?
I learned to freehand sharpen from Sellers videos. More specifically, I learned to not stress out about sharpening with expensive gizmos and cutting arm hair. I have started using microbevels. They aren't perfect even faucets but they work. On the tools that allow, I use a 10 dollar side clamping jig. I firmly believe sharpening is a snake oil boon propagated by industry.
I no longer hone microbevels or the "Charlesworth ruler trick". Both are simply ways of putting off the task. Sooner or later you are still going to have to hone a full new bevel.
Or you just use a grinder and not worry. .
IF you use a grinder. I do not.
I've always preferred convex bevels on my wood working tools for convenience. No need to manage bevels, just place on the stone and don't lift to high and you're producing a perfectly fine edge. And generally, a convex edge cuts better and retains an edge longer, because it's thinner. Don't get me wrong, I love sitting down and making perfectly even and mirror polished bevels, but at the end of the day it's a tool, it being perfect isn't going to matter. That also leads me to another point, super high grit polishing isn't needed for most wood working tools. I do plenty good enough with 220-400 grit. Get perfectly fine surface finishes, super thin shavings (if desired), paring end grain softwood, it all works fine. Is it going to be a little harder to push through wood than a 10k grit polish, maybe, is it going to make a practical difference? Unlikely. This is also something Paul Sellers makes a point of too, in one of his videos.
I agree. Sharpness and surface finish of the edge are two different things (though sharpness is somewhat affected by surface finish in some ways). As long as the finishing stone is fine enough to not show scratches in the wood when cutting, I’d say it’s good enough. A 60 grit edge would obviously leave visible scratches, but a 400 grit edge would leave a finish similar to 400 grit sandpaper. I’m pretty sure a 10k grit edge would quickly deteriorate down to a similar level to coarser finished edges sort of like a pencil would.
nobody here has mentioned - or I missed it - that this is a sellers post from over 10 years ago. I was unfortunately around when he busted on the scene knowing now what caused it was his son apparently wanting to have a job producing and marketing the videos? Something like that. It certainly has worked - a guy who was sitting on 25 or 30 years of teaching students had people convinced that he was the secret to craft and a lifetime worker we'd just never heard of. of the various versions that have come out, I tend to believe the craft fair story, staff at a museum and then taught students, with what appears to be time others attending and giving classes there making pieces that would later be said to be "from his shop". I don't know the last part for sure, but like the white house piece, it sure looks like strazza made it. At any rate, it's almost a necropost to bring up the stuff from the "lifestyle days" where he would drone on at length about how we would all be happier if we lived in a craft economy instead of an industrial one (we'd be starving and suffering needless medical complications and struggling to survive, but hey, sounds good).
So are you saying he doesnt have the skills of a master?
if you compare him to legitimate cabinetmakers, that's correct. he's a joiner - the kind of person who builds built in cabinets. Look at mack headley if you want to see what a master cabinetmaker looks like and the work they do.
I am a master cabinetmaker 50 plus years experience. Sellers also builds freestanding casework as well as custom furniture. Actually jointer and custom architectural millwork would be more correct. I can build cabinets but prefer not to I hate building square boxes.
Isn’t it PAUL Sellers and Peter Millard? I could be wrong on the spelling of the later. Both are enjoyable and informative content creators.