Diamonds are a grit’s best friend

Dull tools make for difficult work. To combat this problem, I recently equipped myself with a fantastic diamond sharpening system from Trend that handles chisels and plane blades with ease. There is an added bonus: other cutting tools around the shop, such as carbide-tipped router bits and saw blades, take a fine hone in seconds. The sharpening kit comes with a 2 1/2″ x 7″ double-sided bench stone and a thin credit card—sized one. The thin profile of the credit card stone makes it extremely easy to touch up carbide-tipped saw blades and router bits.

As a testament to how quickly these stones work, I turned to the bench stone to try to repair the edge of a block plane that I had used to pare a particleboard and melamine cabinet in a kitchen remodel. To put it mildly, I had scored the edge pretty badly. However, the stone returned the plane iron to paper-thin shaving capability.

Trend Diamond Whetstone Kit, $295. For more information, call 800-665-2244 or visit www.trend-uk.com