This is a bare bones, no nonsense outline of how to get your chisel razor sharp in under a minute.

There are a lot of opinions out there on the “right” way to sharpen. And it can get intimidating.

I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to be.

The process below is not the only way to sharpen chisels. But it’s simple, quick, and works damn well.

It’ll take time at first. But with a bit of practice, you’ll have no problem breezing through these steps in under a minute.

When it comes to sharpening, it’s the results that matter — not how you got there (Machiavelli was at least right in this case).

So if anyone tells you you’re not a real woodworker unless you sharpen freehand or use a certain type of stone, ask them why they don’t cut mortises with their fingernails.

Let’s get to it.

Why Wood Warps

Wood is a natural material that constantly adapts and changes with the humidity level. Learning how this works is important if you want to properly manage the wood’s movement and successfully store lumber.

Wood is constantly trying to equalize to the same humidity level as the surrounding air. In a high humidity environment, a dry piece of wood acquires moisture from the air through pores on its surfaces. In a dry environment, the reverse happens, and the wood may release moisture.

As the moisture content changes so do the size of the wood fibers. If the board takes on moisture from the surrounding air, the fibers swell and the board will expand slightly. And as dry air sucks the moisture out of the wood the fibers shrink.

The key to understanding why your nice, flat board warped in your absence is understanding that this swelling and shrinking doesn’t always happen at the same rate throughout the entire board. When left on a workbench or shelf with one face more exposed to airflow, the moisture content changes faster on that face than on the opposite side. This disparity in moisture and swelling is what causes the board to twist or cup into that all too familiar “C” shape. The thinner a piece of wood, the less resistance it has to this warping force and the faster and easier it will warp.

Is Kiln Dried Wood Stable?

Kiln drying is an effective way of drying green (freshly cut) lumber in a controlled environment to a specific moisture content. When done correctly, the resulting dried wood is fairly stable and stronger. But any wood, no matter the drying method, will continue to change moisture levels throughout its lifetime.

How to Store Wood to Prevent Warping

Now that you understand why wood warps you are well on your way to understanding how to keep it flat. Since we can’t completely prevent the wood’s constant swelling and shrinking, the key to keeping your board from warping in the first place is to make sure it happens at an even rate throughout the board. There are several ways to do this:

#1 Use Spacers to Ensure Airflow on All Sides of the Board

One way to ensure even airflow around the entire board, and thus even swelling and shrinking, is to stack your boards with small sticks (called stickers) between each board. Use scrap pieces about 1/4” thick (a pencil thickness) laid across the grain between each board in a stack. This ensures that each board can receive an equal amount of airflow on each side, and any moisture change to the wood will happen at the same rate around the entire piece.

#2 One Tight Stack

Another method is to simply stack the boards in a tight stack with no gaps between them. You can then place a flat piece of plywood on the top board. This method assumes that little or no air flow around the board is just as good as a lot—as long as that airflow is even. This method works just as well as spacers and sometimes better for very thin boards (1/16” or 1/8” thick).

Does Weight Help?

Regardless of which method you use, some weight on top of your boards can help hold the wood firmly in place. But since moisture causes the changes in the wood, weight alone won’t keep a board flat or flatten an already cupped board.

Acclimating Wood

When you bring a new shipment of wood to your shop, chances are that the environment your wood came from differs from the air in your shop. Your new boards will immediately try to equalize to the surrounding humidity level and, if not stored properly, may cup or twist in the process. Use one of the above methods to store the wood, and once the boards have been in your shop for several weeks, the wood will have mostly acclimated to its new environment, and the swelling and shrinking will have stabilized. Now the wood will retain its current shape (which ideally is flat) until it experiences another large humidity change.

How to Flatten Cupped or Warped Wood

To flatten a warped piece of wood, you’ll need to change the moisture content on one side of the board. Look at your warped board and identify the inside face of the “C” or cup. The wood fibers on this side of your board are dryer and have shrunk. You can use water to relieve the tension and allow the board to flatten.

Step 1: Dampen the Dry Side

Using a damp cloth or paper towel, evenly wet this entire face of the board as if you were applying a stain or finish. You can also use a spray bottle here. Ideally you should dampen the face of the wood without leaving any standing water or droplets. How much water you should use depends on the piece’s thickness and how much it has warped. Thicker pieces usually need more water, while thinner pieces require less. Either way, be sparing with the water and repeat the process if necessary. This is better than using too much and damaging the wood.

Step 2: Leave the Board Overnight

Set the damp board, wet face down, on a flat workbench or countertop. This prevents the wet side from drying too quickly and exposes the dry side to the air. Some weight on top of the board here can help coax the wood flat but isn’t always necessary. Let the board sit for 24 hours or overnight and check it again. If isn’t completely flat yet, start back at step #1 and repeat the process.

Step 3: Re-acclimate

Now that your board is flat, give it some time to equalize to the surrounding air and stabilize so it doesn’t warp again. Jump up to “How to Store Wood” and use one of the two methods to store the wood for a few weeks before trying to use your newly flattened board.

When This Method Doesn’t Work

In some instances, this method for flattening wood won’t work. If the wood was not dried correctly to begin with, it might carry too much tension in it’s fibers and stubbornly decide to always stay cupped. Or if the board is twisted and bent into an “S” or other odd shape, often the board won’t return to a flat state. Let us know if you’ve received a piece like this from us. We will make it right.

Finishing

Once you’ve completed your project you should seal the wood with a finish. This seals the pores in the surface of the wood, helps to keep out moisture, and further stabilizes the wood. You can use any number of wood finishing or sealing products. A rub-on, oil finish is easy to apply and retains the wood’s natural matte finish and color. Be sure to evenly finish all faces of your project to create an even seal! Finishing just one side of a board usually results in an imbalance in moisture content causing your wood to warp.

Wood planers are woodworking tools that are typically used for trimming down lumber, removing layers of glue, shaping wood, and more. They are designed to slide across the surface of the material, trimming thin pieces of wood with an angled blade. By gradually cutting through layers of material, the plane can make a rough surface flat and smooth. It can also reduce the thickness of the material, allowing the user to level wooden floorboards, trim swollen doors, or shave down pieces of lumber for the perfect fit.

There are many wood planer types, so in order to get the best results for your project, it’s important to have at least a basic understanding of the various types and their purposes. Use this guide to learn more about wood planers and discover which types of wood planers would be best for your next woodworking project.

• Wood planers are woodworking tools that are typically used for trimming down lumber, removing layers of glue, shaping wood, and more. They are designed to slide across the surface of the material, trimming thin pieces of wood with an angled blade. By gradually cutting through layers of material, the plane can make a rough surface flat and smooth. It can also reduce the thickness of the material, allowing the user to level wooden floorboards, trim swollen doors, or shave down pieces of lumber for the perfect fit.

  There are many wood planer types, so in order to get the best results for your project, it’s important to have at least a basic understanding of the various types and their purposes. Use this guide to learn more about wood planers and discover which types of wood planers would be best for your next woodworking project.

  • 01 of 15

    Block Plane

    

    Best for: Removing thin shavings of wood and glue lines.

    A block plane is a relatively small type of planing tool that ranges from about three to seven inches in length. The blade of a block plane is fixed at a lower angle than other planes, making it easy to remove very thin shavings of wood to touch up the material with a smooth finish. Block planers can also be used to remove glue lines, trim end grain, and angle square edges.
• 02 of 15

  Jointer Plane

  

  Best for: Quickly removing thick layers of material to flatten or straighten the wood.

  While a block plane is intended for fine woodworking, a jointer plane is better for removing a large amount of material to quickly flatten the surface of a large board or to straighten the edges of the material. This type of wood planer is usually about 20 to 24 inches in length, making it the longest manual wood planer. However, the length of the tool shouldn’t be seen as a hindrance. This design makes it easier for the jointer plane to ride over an uneven area as it shaves off the peaks of the material to flatten the surface.
• 03 of 15

  Jack Plane

  

  Best for: Planing large pieces of rough stock, edge jointing, and truing.

  A jack plane is about two-thirds of the size of a jointer plane, at 12 to 18 inches in length. It is intended for use on rough stock and is often the go-to plane to start the planing process. This type of wood planer uses blades with a slight camber, allowing the plane to remove thick layers of rough stock without marring the material.

  A jack plane can also be used to roughly dress a timber to size, truing up the shape to meet your requirements. Just keep in mind that this is not a finishing wood planer, so to get a smooth finish you will need to use a different plane or even a sander after you are done planing the rough material with the jack plane.
• 04 of 15

  Scrub Plane

  

  Best for: Significantly reducing the thickness of a board or a twist in rough stock.

  Similar to a jack wood planer, a scrub plane is made for removing a large amount of material with just a few passes. This type of wood planer has a relatively short sole, a deeply curved edge, and a thick blade to make deep, gouging cuts. Scrub planes should be used when there is a lot of material that needs to be removed to even up your boards or to remove knots, twists, or other defects in the rough stock.

  • 05 of 15

    Shoulder Plane

    Best for: Trimming mortise-tenon joint shoulders and cheeks.

    Many tools are named for their intended purpose and the shoulder plane is no exception. This tool is designed for cross-grain planing with a blade that is positioned at about 20 degrees. It is commonly used to finish dadoes, rabbets, and mortise-tenon joints. Woodworkers can use the shoulder plane to trim the shoulders and the cheeks of these joints to get a smooth, gap-free fit.
  • 06 of 15

    Bench Plane

    

    Best for: General-purpose truing, smoothing, tapering, and flattening.

    The most common manual wood planer is a bench plane. It’s a general purpose wood planer that can be used for a wide variety of projects, including truing up pieces of stock, smoothing rough material, tapering wood for joinery, and flattening material to remove uneven hills. If you only want to worry about investing in one wood planer, a bench plane is one of the best options for a range of purposes.
  • 07 of 15

    Smoothing Plane

    

    Best for: Planing a surface to make it smooth to the touch.

    As the name implies, a smoothing plane is a wood planer that is designed for planing the surface of the wood to a smooth finish. This type of wood planer is relatively small, at just seven to 10 inches in length. After using a jack plane to remove the top layer of rough material, you can switch to a smoothing plane to get a finish that is smooth to the touch.
  • 08 of 15

    Two-Handed Spokeshave Plane

    

    Best for: Planing convex, concave, and curved surfaces.

    There are several different types of two-handed spokeshave planes, depending on the shape of the blade and the sole, including convex spokeshaves, flat bottom spokeshaves, rounded bottom spokeshaves, concave spokeshaves, and combination spokeshaves. Two-handed spokeshaves are ideal for planing convex, concave, and curved surfaces, though they have limited use for planing flat surfaces or edges.

    • 09 of 15

      Surform Plane

      

      Best for: Improved control and reduced clogging while flattening or smoothing material.

      A surform plane is easy to identify because instead of a fixed blade, it has a perforated sheet of metal that looks similar to a cheese grater. Each of the holes in the steel strip have sharpened rims that shave away the material as the user planes the wood. Surform planes are easy to control, they can work on flat or curved surfaces, and don’t often get clogged with sawdust or small pieces of wood.
    • 10 of 15

      Router Plane

      

      Best for: Cutting mortises, trimming dadoes, and cleaning up rough recesses or tenon cheeks.

      The thin, sturdy blade of a router plane allows this tool to cut through wood to create mortises for hinges or inlays. It can also be used to remove any rough material from the bottom or sides of a recess, making it a great choice for trimming dadoes, tenon cheeks, tenon shoulders, and smoothing out sunken panels or depressions.
    • 11 of 15

      Rabbet Plane

      

      Best for: Cutting and trimming step-like rabbets.

      The purpose of a rabbet plane is to cut step-like grooves into the edge of a target material to create a rabbet joint. This type of plane cuts a clean groove into the wood and it can also be used to trim or smooth existing rabbet joints for a closer, gap-free fit. In order to cut the sides of the wood, the blade of a rabbet plane extends outside the face and cheeks of the main plane body. In some areas, rabbets are also referred to as rebates, so the rabbet plane can sometimes be called a rebate plane.
    • 12 of 15

      Handheld Electric Plane

      

      Best for: Rapid planing with powered blades.

      Not every wood planer requires a substantial amount of physical exertion to get the job done. A handheld electric plane relies on an electrical connection to drive two or three cutting blades, located on the base of the tool. These blades can cut up to 1/8-inch off the material per pass as they rotate as about 10,000 to 20,000 rotations per minute. Handheld electric wood planers are excellent for quickly trimming rough edges and surfaces, though it cannot create the same smooth surface as a smoothing plane.

      • 13 of 15

        Electric Benchtop Plane

        

        Best for: Cutting, trimming, and truing material with high speed blades.

        An electric benchtop plane is a heavy-duty option with high speed blades that can make quick work of your rough lumber. Simply set the adjustable cutting height to the desired level and feed material through the benchtop plane to rapidly cut and trim the wood to a uniform size. This type of wood planer is a good option for truing rough material instead of spending more on pre-cut lumber that matches your exact specifications.
      • 14 of 15

        Compass Plane

        

        Best for: Planing convex and concave curves.

        Most wood planers are made for flattening material, but the compass plane has a curved design that makes it ideal for planing convex and concave shapes. Older versions of the compass plane were two separate tools. One was used for concave curves and the other was used for conves curves. However, modern compass planes have an adjustable sole, so users can plane both convex and concave curves with the same tool.
      • 15 of 15

        Chisel Plane

        

        Best for: Removing glue, accessing difficult corners, and cleaning up stopped rebates.

        A chisel plane essentially combines the best of what chisels and planes have to offer. It has a cutting edge that is positioned at the front of the tool, which is useful for removing glue, especially in tight spaces, like the inside corners of a box. The blade can also be used to trim rough material out of the corners of a stopped up rebate, shave wooden dowels, and trim plugs or dovetail joints.

      Choosing a Wood Planer

      It can be difficult to select a wood planer to add to your assortment of handy woodworking tools, but if you are only looking for a general purpose wood plane, then a bench plane is the best option. However, if you are interested in more advanced planing projects, then you may need to invest in more than one plane to accomplish various woodworking tasks, such as having a compass plane for creating convex and concave curves, as well as having a handheld electric plane for quickly planing down pieces of wood.

      Planes are available in a wide variety of types, so you need to consider what you will use the plane for before deciding on the which type you need. A chisel plane is better suited to removing old glue and cleaning up corners, than it is to actually planing materials. While a rabbet plane is made for cutting step-like rabbets into wood, instead of removing thin strips of material. Consider the various types of wood planer and select the tools that are best suited to fulfill your needs. Keep in mind that having more than one plane opens up new options to help you accomplish your woodworking goals, whether that is creating skirting, making dado rails, crafting furniture, or just trimming doors and floorboards. source