Yes, it is April 15th as I write this. Tax Day. The magic day when business owners and the self employed get to write not one but TWO checks to our Uncle. One to pay the rest of last years taxes, and another to pre-pay what we hope to earn over the next three months even before we actually earn it! But rather than get ourselves all worked up, we decided to provide a public service to our customers by announcing our new YouTube channel! We have been promising new things for 2014, and this is one of them. 2Sand.com has an official YouTube channel. Just one video at the moment, but we plan on adding them regularly.

Our premier video is on making a dirt simple honing plate for keeping hand tools properly sharp during use. I own and use a power sharpening system, and many folks use water or oil stones for sharpening, and both these options are still needed. But when working at your bench chopping mortises, you need to refresh the edge pretty regularly to work efficiently and keep the cuts clean. I have found that walking back and forth to the sharpening station breaks the 'stride' of my work, and oil or water stones are too messy to keep on my bench while working. So I keep a honing plate on hand for refreshing the edges.

The honing plate is nothing more than a sheet of wet/dry sandpaper mounted to a scrap of MDF. It provides a smooth level surface for touch ups on my tool edges during use. It is not for setting initial bevels or repairing nicks and other damage, that would take forever. But when I feel my blade is not biting properly, a few seconds on the honing plate gets me right back to work.

So while you are standing in line at the Post Office waiting to get your returns postmarked, you can kill a couple minutes watching the first of many how-to videos we plan to bring you! We have plans for others, but we also invite you to let us know what you would like to see. Products you want reviewed, techniques you with to learn, whatever. Share your ideas with us and we will add them to the list. As always, you can share by commenting here on the blog, on our Facebook page, or via Twitter. -2Sand.com

Watch the Video