Scott, I grew up in an age of disposable powertools, and never considered using good handtools,or building anything that required the use of them. At one point I, in an act of ritual, decided that I was going to get a block plane and learn how to sharpen it. It may sound silly, but it was very important to me at the time. So I bought a Stanley low angle block plane. I bought a book and stone and a sharpener angle thingie. Now I know that there are those who wouldnt even consider this plane anything other than a disposable tool, but for me it was a big step. I spent a considerable length of time on the 'net researching planes and Those That Worship Them. Like any other subject, there are collectors, modifiers, pontificators etc. But what I came away with was enough information to make me and my little plane happy. A few of the things that I read made sense for me and my level of enlightenment so I adopted them and here they are: Out of the box, I removed the iron (the blade) and surfaced the underside to make it flat. A piece of 600 grit alum. oxide sandpaper adhered to a piece of glass with water worked for this. Once that was finished I sharpened the blade (25 degrees) on an oilstone according to the rules in the book I had. Then I honed the edge using a slightly larger (blunter) angle, then lightly redid the back using 1000 grit sandpaper to remove any "curl" from the edge. Like kayak building, there are a million tools, supplies and thingies that you can spend your money on and the same amount of "rules" that you could choose to follow, every conceiveable grit of stone, etc. But for me it was the whole relationship with the tool thing that drove me, in fact I even bought a chisel :)