As I have noted in the past, I typically put aside one weekend a month to do shop maintenance/improvement. This helps keep my shop tip top and ready to go, and helps to improve the efficiency of the shop overall.
For this month, I had four things I wanted to do:
- Sharpen my rabbet planes (wooden/metal planes used to make rabbet joinery)
- Sharpen my router plane bits (the router plane is great for leveling the inside of grooves & rabbets, and the tenons in mortise & tenon work)
- Clean off/Prep handsaws; I purchased a set of three handsaws for a low price off of ebay ($27 for 3). I needed a small panel saw (18 inches) and two other handsaws came with it. I want to clean them up in preparation for sharpening. This will also help me see if any of them are worthwhile.
- Change out the blades on my Dewalt planer. Its about time, and with some of the work I am getting ready to do for 2025 markets, I need sharp blades on
The sharpening is not hard with my setup. The rabbet plane blades are like regular ones, so it was quick work to run them across my water stones (500 then 2000 then 8000 grit) and then strop them on leather.
Router plane bits, though, are a lot more difficult. They are “L” shaped, so you start off sharpening the flat bottom, and then the edges on top. It was a little bit of a challenge, but I got it done.
Changing out the blades on the planer was also pretty easy. Dewalt made the setup and changeover very simple, so it took less than 30 minutes to put in a new set of blades.
The interesting challenge was the handsaws. They came in pretty ugly, with lots of rust and some pitting. Took off the saw nuts and then the handle.
From there, I put them in a “bath” of 1 part vinegar to 4 parts water, to try and loosen up any rust. I usually leave them in overnight.
After that, If it did not fix the issue, I use a couple of different chemical treatments to try and get rid of the remaining rust, with a lot of scrubbing.
In the end, I had two saws that were OK, but the long handsaw (26 inches) had a lot of pitting in it – probably isn’t salvageable. Still, not a bad price for potentially two good handsaws to use or sell. Now I just need to make sure they are straight and then sharpen them!
Kevin