Stumbled into an old shop in Portland and watched a guy fix a mortise chisel with a hammer and a file

I was killing time between jobs last week and walked into this tiny tool shop off SE Grand. The guy behind the counter was working on a beat up mortise chisel that looked totally wrecked. He spent like 20 minutes just tapping it with a hammer and running a file across the edge. No power tools, no jig. Just good old muscle memory and a steady hand. Got me thinking about how much I rely on my bench grinder for stuff like that. Any of you guys still sharpen by hand or am I the only one?

2 comments

2 Comments

elizabethn564d agoMost Upvoted

Funny you mention this, because I used to be all about the bench grinder for everything. I figured if it was good enough for production work, it was good enough for me. But then I watched a guy at a woodworking show do a similar thing with a mortise chisel and it totally flipped my thinking. He said the steel stays harder if you don't overheat it, and you can feel the edge way better with a file. Now I keep a cheap bastard file and a small ball peen hammer in my apron. I still use the grinder for rough shaping, but for actual sharpening I'm doing it by hand more and more. It's slower but the edges last a lot longer.

samwalker4d ago

Ain't it funny how something that simple can change your whole approach though... I've been wondering if the real secret is actually in how you hold the file more than which file you use. Most folks grip it like a hammer handle and push straight, but I found if you angle your wrist just a little it puts a different kind of pressure on the edge. That little change made my chisels hold an edge twice as long, even using the same cheap hardware store file. Maybe it's about working smarter instead of just buying different tools.