An oldie but a good one.

[Graham Orm]

Sharpening Stanley blades. Why bother you say? It's quicker than changing the blade I say, especially when you're going through them at a rate. I haven't done it for ages, but used to use a stone. This obviously leads to an unevenly worn stone unless you dedicate a cheapie to it.

Just recently I bought a credit card sized diamond stone for sharpening router cutters (for worktop cutters mainly). It works well. Whilst doing some veneering and getting fed up of swopping the blade, I decided to give it a whiz on the fine side of the diamond card.....Wow! sharper than new, or so it seems. 3 Rubs on either side of the blade, job done, back to work.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

If you ever have to sharpen one properly, one of those plastic window scrapers that take Stanley blades works wonders.

 

[Graham Orm]

If you ever have to sharpen one properly, one of those plastic window scrapers that take Stanley blades works wonders.

Great idea Phil. I use one of those regularly for all sorts of things. I'll give it a proper go when I have a minute.

 

[Woodchips2]

I bring them back to life on a leather strop. I use a Stanley knife when I'm cutting wallpaper and after two or three pieces of paper the paper is apt to tear because the blade is not sharp enough. I recently did a whole room with just the one blade and stropped after every piece of paper. It only takes seconds and much quicker than changing blades.

The other trick I learned about paperhanging from an American video on YouTube was to use a long strip of plastic to press the paper against the ceiling or skirting as you cut. Gives a lovely clean edge.

Regards Keith

 

[Graham Orm]

I bring them back to life on a leather strop. I use a Stanley knife when I'm cutting wallpaper and after two or three pieces of paper the paper is apt to tear because the blade is not sharp enough. I recently did a whole room with just the one blade and stropped after every piece of paper. It only takes seconds and much quicker than changing blades.

The other trick I learned about paperhanging from an American video on YouTube was to use a long strip of plastic to press the paper against the ceiling or skirting as you cut. Gives a lovely clean edge.

Regards Keith

Thanks for the input Keith. I have a strop and will give it a whirl...as for the decorating tip....where were you a week ago? I've just papered the lounge!

 

[undergroundhunter]

I use one of these http://www.toolstop.co.uk/index.php..._medium=base&gclid=CMHGyMLxsL8CFYnItAodojsANQ as a marking knife and have sharpened that blade many times, just couple of quick flicks on my extra fine diamond stone then the same on the strop and off we go again. When new it came with 2 blades, I'm still on the 1st after 2 years.

Matt

 

[Doug B]

With the money you saved sharpening your Stanley blades buy a replaceable tip cutter for your worktops, they're the doggies do darrs \/