Perhaps you've seen a carpenter sharpen a plane? I used to do this kind of thing all the time.
I remember that in March 1971, I was assigned to the model workshop of Wuye Machine Repair Factory as a wooden model worker. I began to learn how to push wood planer. Every time I saw the wood shavings flying out of the top of my planer, they would gently slide along with my right index finger and fly onto my feet. I felt particularly comfortable. The fine friction between the wood shavings would make people's skin itch and feel comfortable.
To the layman, the more wood shavings there were, the more capable the carpenter was. From an expert's point of view, the thinner the wood shavings, the more it showed that the carpenter's skills were superb. However, there was no knife in the world that would never be sharpened. No matter how well-sharpened the plane knife was, there would always be a time when it would be blunt. After the edge of the plane knife was blunt, it would make the plane difficult to use, and it would not even be able to push out the wood shavings.
At the beginning of my apprenticeship, whenever the plane knife was blunt, I had to pick up the plane with my left hand and hit the tail of the plane with a hammer with my right hand. My fingers were pressed against the plane knife and the wooden wedge behind the cover iron that was originally clamped on the plane, so that the plane knife and the cover iron were gently removed from the plane. Then, I placed the removed plane knife and cover iron on the workbench, took the removed plane knife, went to the sink behind the model room, dipped it in tap water, and sharpened the plane knife on a whetstone.
When I started to learn how to sharpen the plane knife, I didn't pay attention to how others sharpened the knife. I just simply ground the edge of the plane knife back and forth on the whetstone a few times. I felt that it could be used faster. Therefore, the plane knife I ground basically couldn't be used for a long time. It didn't matter if it couldn't be used. I just grinded it again. In any case, there was nothing else during the apprenticeship, but time. Apprentices needed at least three years.
There was once when I was still grinding the plane knife by the sink behind the model room. I thought I had finished grinding it. I was about to turn around and go back to work when a big hand suddenly reached out from behind me. He grabbed it from my hand and took the plane knife that I had just sharpened into his hand.
I turned around and saw that it was my master.
Master Shi held the planer knife and gently touched the blade with his finger.
"How's the sharpening?" he asked. How long can it last?"
I said,"It shouldn't be a problem to use it for an entire morning.”
Master Shi frowned and said in Shanghai dialect with great dissatisfaction,"Little bastard, you are such a hooligan. That idea is wrong."
I was stunned.
" I understand now." Little Red Lad " is a Shanghainese slang. Master Shi is criticizing me. And he was really angry. He started cursing.
I quickly explained to Master Shi,"You were in Shanghai some time ago, and I was sharpening knives here. I learned to sharpen them myself." In the past, when I was an educated youth in the countryside, I went out to work with the carpenters in the production team. Those carpenters praised me and said that I was good at grinding.”
Master Shi's expression was much better than before. He slowly let out a sigh of relief and eased the tense atmosphere again.
Master Shi smiled and said," Speaking of which, you're quite an old hand. When you were in the countryside, you sharpened the knife like that. It's not wrong. You still have your reasons." Life in the countryside was hard. The carpenter in the production team asked you to sharpen the knife like that because it was purely a waste of time. The root cause was very simple. To put it bluntly, he just wanted to work more in other people's homes. At most, he just wanted to get a few more meals. But you are different now. Now, you are already a wood model worker in a national enterprise. According to the words of the countryside, you are a regular army. You have to think about working as much as possible and producing more qualified products. To be sure, your standards and requirements will be higher than before. It could not be the same as the original level.”
Master Shi paused for a moment, took out a steel ruler, and touched the edge of the plane knife I sharpened. He turned around and stared at the light.
He asked me to go over and take a look. The inclined plane of the blade edge was round and drum-shaped. After using this kind of round and drum-shaped blade planer for a short time, the blade edge would start to dry rub against the surface of the wood. The common problem was that no matter how much strength one used to push the planer, there would be no shavings. Or when the plane was pushed on the wooden board, it took a lot of effort. This is the fundamental reason why you keep sharpening your sword. When sharpening the knife, the angle between the inclined surface of the blade and the plane of the upper mouth of the plane must be less than 15 degrees. The sharpness of the blade had to be so sharp that it could cut off the hair on the arm with a light touch. Only then could it be considered qualified. Under normal circumstances, the planer knife that was grinded like this could be used for at least ten days to half a month. There should be no problem. This is the only way you can sharpen the knife. As the saying goes, chopping wood does not delay the sharpening of the knife. I've just finished sharpening a planer knife. Take it as a model and compare it to the way I've sharpened it. Rework all your planer knives and sharpen them all again. The main task of being an apprentice is to learn the technique. Don't just think about speed first. To save trouble, the key was that the planer knife he found had to be useful.”
He had no choice. Since Master had already given the order, who would dare to disobey Master's order? The disciple could only do as he was told. I returned to the workbench without a word and took all the planer knives, other woodworking tools, axes, and other tools to the sink behind the model room. I strictly followed the master's requirements and spent two to three days to grind them all again. Then, I asked Master Shi to check them properly. Master Shi came over and checked them one by one. He said with satisfaction,"In the future, you will sharpen your knife like this. Don't be lazy." I nodded in embarrassment. "I'll remember it," he whispered with a smile.”
Through this experience of sharpening the blade, I feel that my work efficiency has indeed improved. Moreover, I often don't need to sharpen the blade for more than 20 days after sharpening the blade. More and more production tasks were completed. The products they made were also more popular than before. The section chief, Master Yang, often praised me at the team meeting, saying that Xiao Shi's work level had indeed improved very quickly. The other apprentices had to share their work experience with Xiao Shi. Everyone had to improve their skills as soon as possible. Many completed their production tasks. Of course, I also saw that when the section chief, Master Yang, praised me at the meeting, my master, Shi Xingu, always had a proud smile on his face.
When I was re-educated by the poor peasants in the vast world, I also followed the carpenters of the production team and worked in the primary school project of the brigade for a few days. He also helped the carpenters sharpen their planers. At that time, he was on a bluestone slab by the roadside, which was soaked in the stream water from the roadside creek. The so-called sharpening of the knife was to soak it in some water and make a few sounds on the stone slab. It was enough to feel that it was sharper than before.
In the workshop. The stones used to sharpen knives were all processed synthetic materials. It was very hard. There were synthetic stones that could be used to sharpen knives with water and synthetic stones that could be used to sharpen knives with oil. In the countryside, the stones we use to sharpen our knives are natural bluestone slabs. The two types of whetstones had different effects. In the end, each of them would show their merits.
When I was an educated youth, I was on the water conservancy site of the Mid-Autumn Academy in the mountains. When I was digging tunnels, I was very familiar with the carpenters there. I basically didn't see them use planes. He had forgotten. The carpenters had used planes before. These planes were used to make sleepers and tracks for small carts used to push gravel in the tunnel. This isn't a big workload. We can figure it out with our eyes closed. However, they gradually extended into the tunnel according to the progress of the tunnel. He did not have high requirements for the size of the frame section of the sleepers and tracks. It was fine as long as it was close to the mark. The wooden tracks at the joints were adjusted with wooden cleats, as long as the surface height of the wooden tracks was the same.
I'm now working as a wood model in the factory. The products I make must have strict size specifications. They had to go through multiple levels of strict inspection. The number of products that needed to be completed was different, and there were also different models to be made. Every product had a special method of making models, and each method had its own merits. The products made by the wood molders were also very different. No wood molder dared to say that he had completed all the models. It could be said that one lived and learned.
Just from the matter of sharpening the knife, it was quite complicated. Every wood molder had quite a variety of planes. There were regular planers and long ones. The longest ones were 800mm long, 600mm long, 300mm long, and 150mm long. There were also planers with different width, ranging from two inches to one and a half inches, and even one inch. There were also groove planers for pulling grooves, circular planers for planing inner arcs, and iron planers for planing foreign households. Wait, every plane had a different type of planing iron. There were also all kinds of flat shovels and round shovels. For different knives, they had to prepare different whetstones. He had to think of a way to make this oddly-shaped whetstone himself.
In addition to the whetstones that used water to sharpen the blade and the whetstones that used oil to sharpen the blade, there were also some whetstones that did not use water. The method that didn't use oil was to use a triangular scraper to scrape the blade directly and slowly scrape out a sharp blade.
There was also a type of knife, which was the roller planer. It was the core part of the planer. There were four knives on the roller of the machine. The four knives were installed in the top, bottom, left, and right directions of the drum machine. The rotation speed was above 3600 revolutions per minute. Every single blade was forged from spring steel. We can't sharpen these four blades ourselves. Once we need to grind these four knives, we can only entrust the grinder master in the machine workshop. Grind on the grinder with the help of a special clamp
I was an apprentice of Master Shi in the model room for three years. My basic skills as a carpenter were quite solid. After decades of retirement, he still had the foundation to sharpen his knife. He grinded the kitchen knife at home according to the basic method that his master had taught him.
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