First page of the Spider Video Player archive.

Quick and effective spoon knife honing

Posted by bedhead on March 18, 2017 with 2 Commentsas , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always struggled a bit getting a spoon/bowl knife “really” sharp. You know, wicked sharp, where it wants to cut the wood from across the room? I’ve taught loads of people to sharpen chisels, plane blades,…, but these were all tools with a cutting edge along a straight surface. As you well know, the spoon/bowl knives have their cutting edge along a curve, which is what makes them more difficult to bring to the highest level of sharpness.

A while ago I recalled how I’d made two accessories that fit a small, tight-radiused gouge, and helped me hone it effectively. So why not use a similar process for these curved knives?

I found a scrap of Pine (I like using a softwood, but you can use what you have available) that I cut into two blanks that were about 4″ long and 1 1/2″ – 2″ wide. This allowed some extra material so I could hold it safely, while I was honing the knife. On the first, I used my spoon knife (made by John Switzer @BlackBearForge on IG) to remove some wood along a portion of one face, until I had a recess that matched the curve of my knife. This was just a shallow recess, just so no one works hard trying to fit the whole of the curved blade down into it. On the second pine blank’s end, I pressed a section of the curved knife’s blade into the end-grain, and then removed wood until I reached the cut line (curved).

As you can imagine, both blanks were made to these shapes so I could apply some honing compound, and then hone the blade against them. Having the blanks/jigs matching the  shape of the knife creates a wider contact area, rather than just a point, which for me helps stabilize the knife and “jig”. When I’d used a flat piece of wood (with some honing compound on it) to work the outside of the spoon knife, I could tell I wasn’t as consistent.

You can use whatever honing compound you’d like, or if you are needing to sharpen, rather than hone, you can apply a section of PSA sandpaper to the “jigs” internal / external curves. I like to use the Tormek honing paste on the “jigs”, that my Tormek T-7 came with years ago, as it seems to cut most metal quickly as well as bring to a very polished surface. You can pick up a tube at Highland Woodworking (a link to their website is over on the right side of my page, and full disclosure, I do get compensated if you purchase through that link) or a number of other retailers.

Here is a quick video I made to show how I am using the “jigs” I discuss above, but if you cannot view this, the direct link for Youtube is here (or you can copy and paste this info: https://youtu.be/qOlaTIEUAVM ).


 

I hope this makes it easier for each of you to make your spoon knife as wickedly sharp as possible.

 

Lee Laird

Site Video Player corrected – details

Posted by bedhead on September 20, 2016 with No Commentsas , , , , , , , ,

Unfortunately the videos on my site were all automatically set with the auto-play switch set to on, and I couldn’t seem to get to the level needed in which to change this. I know this created a wall of audio with my vocals talking on top of one another. This was very frustrating and I’m sorry anyone had to endure this problem. For those that went through and clicked the pause button, and continued to stick around, I’m very grateful!

Last night I updated the video player on my site to Spider 1.5.18, which makes the handling of the auto-play easy and understandable. Beyond letting my audience know this is now resolved and all videos loaded since Friday 9/16/2016 (at this point) and any future videos will play only when the user clicks on the video play button, I thought I’d provide an extremely limited how-to for anyone using this specific video player.

The Spider Video Player 1.5.18 has large number of parameters that the site admin can control to (hopefully) make the end user’s experience better. To actually control the mass of parameters (of course including auto-play), from the Side-bar menu, under the Video Player heading, choose/click Themes. This opens a window that allows you to either select one of the auto-generated themes, as well as the “Add a Theme” button towards the upper left of the window.

 

The Theme selection/addition/deletion window, with the

The Theme selection/addition/deletion window, with the “Add a Theme” button and my theme surrounded by a red line.

 

Choose/click this button and as you probably expect, you get to name your new theme, but don’t forget to scroll down the page, as this is where all of the detailed control is located. Much of this control is via choosing either “yes” or “no” radio buttons, but others like the volume of video/audio are controlled via a slider you drag from 0-100. The two screen shots below, are just some of the controls provided, which is why I decided to focus attention on the most important areas, related to this discussion.

 

Make sure to name and save your new theme.

Make sure to name and save your new theme.

 

This is the bottom section of the Theme Creation page, where I drew a red oval around the auto-play switch.

This is the bottom section of the Theme Creation page, where I drew a red oval around the auto-play switch.

 

Some or all of this may be child’s play for most reading this, but hopefully it will assist someone else that was having difficulty with the control of their videos.

Thank you for checking out this article/tip. Please let me know if you have any questions or comment.

 

Lee Laird

@LeeLairdWoodworking – InstaGram

@LeeLairdWW – Twitter