G’day Tyler
I sharpen simple things like chisels and plane blades a fair bit. I have a setup that allows me to get them sharp quite quickly and to establish a sharpness that is both durable and straight forward to maintain. For this I use a wet stone grinder and an array of Japanese waterstones.
I do a fair bit of compound curve sharpening with axes and knives as well because I use them a lot. The first thing I sharpened, as a seven year old, was an axe. I had a grandfather who spent much of his working life felling trees and processing sawlogs so it was important to me to demonstrate proficiency with the tools he used, I’ve spent a lot of hours with files and waterstones.
There are a few things I won’t try and sharpen. Reel mowers is one, they’re waaay out of my skillset with the complex curves and the need for a uniform depth on each cutter and across the entire width. My wife’s good sewing scissors - I bought her a special set and don’t want to mess any of them up. My hedge shears, they’re a complex curved shape and are not flat along any axis. As we have a travelling sharpening bloke who comes through now and again and he gets them exactly right without removing much material at all, I feel much happier handing shears to him.
