The front cover. The page size is 8.5 x 11 inches, 216 x 280 mm.

Figure 2.6 which shows that provided a cutting edge doesn’t crumble in use, more abrasion is needed to bring an edge with a small sharpening angle to a given bluntness than is needed to bring an edge with a larger sharpening angle to the same bluntness. This conclusion, drawn by Leonard Lee in his book The Complete Guide to Sharpening and confirmed by testing by Steve Elliott, overturns the conventional wisdom that the larger the sharpening angle, the less often that edge needs to be resharpened. The recommended sharpening angles for carbon tool steel turning tools were until 1956 30 degrees or less. Why then with the superior high speed steels used now have recommended sharpening angles greatly increased?

 

Richard Findley review published on page 65 of UK Woodturning magazine published on 21 March 2024

This is the seventh book in Mike’s woodturning series. If you’ve read any of his other books, you will be used to his style of writing and illustrating. I have all of his previous books and always find his approach interesting and unique, the subjects always being well researched combined with knowledge coming from years of practical experience, you can’t fail to learn something from them.

In Sharpening Woodturning Tools, Mike takes a deep dive into the subject, focusing the early part of the book on exactly why we sharpen our tools to the angles we do. His main argument is that, with the quality of modern tool steel, we really should be sharpening to longer bevel angles because modern steel is more than capable of holding an edge. He reflects that Frank Pain, in his 1956 book The Practical Wood Turner, was the first to use shorter [coarser] sharpening angles and later books all seem to have blindly taken his lead. Mike looks at a wide selection of books from both before and after Pain’s and questions why? *

While I don’t entirely agree with some of Mike’s conclusions, some of his arguments were compelling enough to make me look again at some of my grinding angles and question why I do things the way I do. It never hurts to ask this of yourself from time to time.

With his argument made, Mike then moves on to show how he sharpens his tools, giving a range of alternative methods too. He never shies away from a difficult or technical explanation of the hows or whys of the subject, nor does he gloss over any details to make it easier to understand. He presents the facts as he sees them and lets the reader decide.

I believe some of the content may be a little technical for a raw beginner. However any turner who likes to understand the ‘why’ as well as the ‘how’ about a subject will gain knowledge from this book. This is an interesting read on a fascinating subject that is well worth exploring if you have a questioning mind about such things. There is no doubt that sharpening is a vitally important part of turning and this book attempts to shine a light on this often-overlooked area of the craft.

* Pain promoted coarse sharpening angles 20 years before HSS tools came into use. These coarse angles were suboptimal for carbon-tool-steel tools, and even more so for the much more abrasion-resistant HSS tools.

Published in November 2023, Sharpening Woodturning Tools (SWT) has 121 pages including a 5-page index. There are 242 illustrations.

Many turners have trouble sharpening, in part because there is a huge pile of conflicting and vague advices to choose from. SWT explains how you can sharpen consistently accurately, quickly, less often and without huge cost. Were SWT only to do this, its advices would merely add to the pile. SWT therefore analyses sharpening advices given in the last 70 years, and exposes those which are suboptimal.

SWT has five chapters:

Chapter 1, Introduction. Explains basic terms, and includes a table which shows how different the sharpening advices from 33 different turning book’s published since 1881 have been.

Chapter 2, Principles of turning and of sharpening. The foundation of the book on which Mike’s recommended sharpening methods, equipment, and nose shapes are based. Unfortunately much the sharpening (and turning) advice given in the last 70 years is not soundly based on these principles.

Chapter 3, Sharpening materials and equipment. Discusses grinding equipment, honing equipment, associated materials; analyses the three basic grinding jig types, and the use of templates to set them.

Chapter 4, Sharpening different tool types. Mike advocates the use of grinding jigs, but only if they can be set quickly and with repeatable accuracy. There are essentially two types of template, both invented by Mike and introduced in Mike’s 2001 book Woodturning Techniques. Turners can readily make their own templates from the designs provided in this chapter. Many will find that the 13 pages on sharpening bowl gouges challenge both the way they turn bowls and the way they sharpen their bowl gouges.

Chapter 5, Conclusion. Summarises Mike’s research and concludes that despite the introduction of new materials and equipment, turning techniques and sharpening have in some ways regressed in recent decades because the principles explained in chapter 2 have been neglected.

YouTube has adversely affected the sales of how-to books. Why buy a book when you can get the info from YouTube for nothing? However, the book is still the best way to make SWT‘s analysis and information available. But rather than publish in the usual way, Mike has chosen to publish using Amazon’s print-on-demand facility. Just go to your national Amazon website, put in the book’s title, and place your order. The book is then individually printed and bound, and delivered to you.

The two reviews published to date are repeated below.

Figure 2.17 which shows that the smaller an edge’s sharpening angle, the greater the amount of regrinding required to restore the correct sharpening angle for the same angular grinding error. Therefore, if you’re going to take full advantage of cutting with edges with small sharpening angles, you’ll have to resharpen accurately. Hence the book’s promotion of grinding jigs and templates to set them.

 

John Kelsey review published in the February 2024 American Woodturner

Who would have thought that sharpening woodturning tools would warrant a whole book? *

Darlow opens with a raft of definitions—bevel, sharpening, rake angles, rake and clearance faces—and a survey of woodturning literature. He finds that until late in the 20th century, the experts all agreed on 25° to 30° as the ideal bevel angle for skews, gouges, and most other cutting tools. But then some experts shifted towards 45°, causing a state of confusion for Darlow to sort out here.

After making a case for 25° through a series of diagrams and close-up photos, Darlow devotes the balance of this book to surveying equipment and sharing his own methods. I was sufficiently intrigued to measure my own tools: skews around 30°, close enough, but my roughing gouges and detail gouges were way too blunt. I’ll be experimenting soon with his advice on this.

Darlow also argues persuasively for a two-step process: hollow-grind on a coarse 8” (20 cm) CBN wheel, then hone (and re-hone) using a 600-grit diamond slip stone. Diagrams show how this is more efficient and wastes less tool steel than either flat or convex grinding.

The pages include useful templates for angle-setting jigs of Darlow’s own design, plus plans for Darlow’s own grinder platform. However, the discussion is not so sharp when it comes to bowl gouges and the complex jigs needed to create a swept-back grind, and on page 105 the reason becomes clear: Darlow doesn’t like or use swept-back bowl gouges.

And thus Darlow himself is both the strength and the weakness of this book. Practices he knows and does himself, he understands and can explain to a remarkably fine degree. What he doesn’t do himself, he judges to be suboptimal. This reflects his core belief that there is indeed an optimum way of doing everything, and anything else is substandard, to be disregarded. But in fact–and I have seen this over and over again in my long career as a writer and editor—every adept craftsperson operates within a coherent system wherein all the parts fit smoothly together. An element considered in isolation might not make sense, but in context, it works perfectly well . . .for that craftsperson. Optimum for you is not necessarily optimum for me.**

This is No. 7 in Darlow’s encyclopedic series of books. I have the whole set and I value his research, many insights, and sharp analysis, though I could do with less of his superior tone. If sharpening is a struggle for you, do give Darlow a try before you buy more expensive apparatus. What’s optimum for him might be plenty good for you, too.

* John Kelsey was the editor of the 2014 book Sharpening Turning Tools.

** John is correct. I do believe that there are one or more optimum techniques which can be used to perform any turning operation. Some suboptimal techniques may however only be a few percent less efficient. But for all unhandicapped turners with similar equipment the optimal techniques are the same.