I recently watched a really good video on the Carver’s Woodshop Youtube Channel that talked about using varying grades of sandpaper to sharpen and touch up wood carving tools. Arleen showed how to use a scrap piece of wood and some sandpaper to create a really easy wood carving sharpening tool. The video that I am referring too can be found here : Carverswoodshop
After watching this video, I began to scavenge my wood carving supplies and found that I had a piece of 1X4 board that I wanted to try for this type of project. I used the board as a type of progressive work space that utilized several grades of sandpaper in succession to sharpen some wood carving knives that I made from old pocket knife blades.
I glued rectangle pieces of sandpaper onto the board in order of their grit grade from roughest to finest. I used 150 grade, 220 grade and 400 grade sandpaper. The board fits nicely on my lap in the seated position and allows me to start with the 150 grade paper and progress to the finest 400 grade sandpaper. After each grade of sandpaper is completed, I move to the next and then for the final touch, I use a handheld leather strop or power strop attached to my drill.
The knives that I most recently worked with were originally sharpened and used as folding pocket knives. The angle of regular pocket knives is not really very useful for whittling and wood carving, so you needed to alter them for carving. Using the sandpaper progression, I was able to take them from pocket knife condition to wood carving condition without a whole lot of effort. Another nice advantage of using sandpaper by hand, is that you don’t have to worry too much about building up too much heat on your blade to cause it to lose temper.
Here is a picture of the sharpening board.
Wood Carving Sharpening Board