A few years ago I tried Woodcraft’s sharpening service for my jointer knives. They came back in really rough condition and looked like they were sharpened on asphalt. In addition to the crappy sharpening, one of the knives (of the 3) that came back was not mine. It was the right size, but not the knife I gave them and it was less wide than the other two. I should have returned it to them but I kept it.  After this I’ve sharpened all of my knives myself using this DIY jig.  Over the years I’ve wondered if the mismatched knife would cause excess wear on the jointer cutterhead bearings because of the significant difference in weight.  Well, I recently found a really great source (and cheap) for jointer knives and I had all three knives replaced; the knives are V2-HSS.  I installed them tonight and they left an ultra smooth surface which was superior to my older knives.

Here is the source if you’re interested.

When I first started using waterstones I purchased a Norton flattening stone along with them.  I’ve been using it for years and I naively just assumed that the flattening stone has remained flat.  I tested its flatness tonight by rubbing it on  a piece of 220 grit sandpaper that was adhered to a flat granite surface plate.  Well, you can see by the picture below that it was not flat.  There are high spots on two outside corners and a hollow in the center.  After realizing this, I’ve decided to abandon flattening my waterstones using this method.  Instead, I plan on flattening my waterstones directly on a piece of 220 grit sandpaper (with the granite surface plate).  The alternative would be to flatten the flattening stone on the sandpaper, but I thought that it would make more sense to cut out the middleman.