I consider a good grinder to be one of the most important tools in the shop. In 2008 I was asked to write an article about hollow grinding for Fine Woodworking and so I took the plunge, and treated myself to the best grinder I knew: A Baldor, and man-o-man, ...more info

There has been a lot of buzz these days about sharpening with diamond paste. It’s about as fast a method as there is to sharpen. You squeeze a tiny amount of paste on a substrate. Then sharpen normally. MDF and flat maple boards are both popular choices ...more info

Back in the bad old days, when you needed to grind chisels, your only option was a high-speed electric grinder with really coarse, gray wheels of indeterminate composition. You learned to constantly dunk your blade in water, or you would get the blue coloring ...more info

A lot of people like to use monocrystalline diamond plates to produce the initial bevel on their tools because of their speed, durability and ability to withstand pressure. Toshio Odate wrote in "Woodwork Magazine" that he started using diamond stones for the ...more info

The single most important thing you can do to keep your grinding wheels running cool, calm and collected is to dress them frequently. Dressing the stone removes any glaze that causes friction; levels the surface so that the entire wheel gets used; and most ...more info

With a saw file, practice and a little instruction you can take any saw and turn it into a gem. This is the entire range of saw files for sharpening any kind of Western saw. You should always use any file with a handle, sold separately. Our files are made in ...more info

Until they were discontinued we stocked Nicholson auger bit files. Then when we looked around all we could find were Chinese and Indian replacements that were inexpensive but not that good, and more importantly, not our style. After a long search we found ...more info

A small dedicated corner of your shop just for sharpening makes it far easier to keep tools ready for action. This sharpening station is 18" wide x 24" deep with a 1 1/2" riser at the back. The top is heavy gauge T-430 Stainless steel, with 1 5/8" ...more info

Your Gramercy Tools backsaw is made out of 1095 steel. It should stay sharp for a long time. However eventually it will need sharpening. We can understand if you hesitate to do this job yourself and we are happy to provide this service. You are responsible ...more info

A good saw vise is crucial when you hand-sharpen a saw. Most of the saw vises we see on the antique market are lighter duty saw vises with built in clamps for temporarily clamping to a bench for sharpening in the field. We have used them for years. ...more info

When using a saw, you’ll notice that the kerf (the technical term for the groove the saw makes as it cuts) must be wider than the body of the blade or the blade will bind. To accomplish this some saws are tapered with the steel at the cutting edge ...more info

The single most important thing you can do to keep your grinding wheels running cool, calm and collected is to dress them frequently. Dressing the stone removes any glaze that causes friction; levels the surface so that the entire wheel gets used; and most ...more info

Larry Williams of Clark & Williams Planemakers mentioned to us that one of the critical tools for making molding plane irons was thin grinding wheels so that you can grind a concave profile. In general for professional grinding shop with industrial machines ...more info

I use my coarse diamond stone a lot for two major activities: Flattening the backs of chisels and the backs of plane blades. Flattening water stones. If you use older tools as much as I do then the coarsest, meanest, flat abrasive surface you can find is the ...more info

We do a brisk business in Western-style saw files. There is nothing like a sharp saw, and while it takes a little practice, sharpening a saw is a great skill that makes the rest of woodworking a lot more pleasurable. However, we can all agree that sharpening ...more info

When shopping around for "green" honing compound, we learned a few things. First, the green color comes from the dye the maker uses, so all the different grits of rouge bars look different. Second, all green rouges are not alike. Even this maker makes two ...more info

Mill files are used by woodworkers primarily for jointing scrapers and saws. These Grobet files are from the maker’s Swiss-made line and are the best files made today. The 8" file is pretty standard for jointing scrapers and can also be used for ...more info

These stones offer a great way to sharpen very fast while still using traditional hand methods. They're popular for scissors sharpening, but they are also very useful for quickly sharpening any tool especially those using harder alloys like A2, D2 and HSS. ...more info