Adventures In DIY

Even though I’ve been woodworking on and off for a couple of years I still don’t have a set of sharpening stones. Of course I have one of those Arkansas whetstones where the grit difference on one side is probably 80 and the other side around 200.

I came across and article a while back where the author made a sharpening surface from sandpaper and floated glass. Instead of putting one grit on each side of the glass, I decided to allow for 3 different grits on each side.

I’m sure my piece of glass wasn’t floated glass, but for under $7 how could I complain? Total cost for this project was under $15 using 3 different grits of sandpaper.

Sharpening Stone Replacement Materials

First thing was to clean the glass.

Cleaning Glass

The sandpaper sheets were halved and torn by hand. These will eventually get scraped off the glass when they become no good anymore so I’m not concerned with nice edges.

Halving The Sandpaper

Glue was applied and spread on the backs of the sandpaper pieces that would be adhered to the glass.

Spreading Glue On Sandpaper

Finally after gluing the sheets on to both sides of the glass, weight was added to the top to make sure the sandpaper didn’t curl on its edges while it dried.

Weighing Down For Drying

Wood Works with David Marks is one of the best woodworking shows I’ve seen. The show can be found on the diy Network. His perspective seems to be showing the viewer how a professional craftsperson making a living would go about constructing a project, but at the same time he tries to use only the basic tools of the workshop.

Many of the shows aired are from 4-5 years ago, but the techniques are timeless. My favorite aspect of the show is the fact that some of the power tools used regularly in the show were purchased used originally with some being 25 years old.