Hoi Jongens!
My dutch is quite not-existent so I write in english instead, hope that's ok with you. First of all, thanks to Ernest for the idea of giving a course in his place, it never crossed my mind and I'm really happy there is interest on it. I'd like to give some info on what the course can be and tell you more about myself. And add some pictures so you have an idea of what we will see.
First, I've been interested in Japanese tools for two years now. I started learning Japanese saw sharpening since I decided to go back to Chile after living a few years in Holland and Austria. Since I didn't want to pay the shipping to Chile for disposable blades I thought that sharpening my own saws was a must. So I got a few old beaters and started studying them. I didn't suspect that saws could be such a delicate and sophisticated thing...
After saws I went into japanese planes, where I'm spending most of my time nowadays.
Since I moved to Chile I started to give an introductory course to japanese woodworking there, 3 days courses and already 10 people had taken them. In the classes I teach sharpening and use of japanese tools (essentially working without a vice), layout and some japanese joints.
For the course in Friesland we could cover saw sharpening and plane sharpening, set up and use. I sadly didn't bring any of my chisels or saws this time, but I have a few really nice planes I got from Japan and shipped to Germany and a few stones. I'm also getting a sashigane before going there so we could see some centre line layout for japanese joints.
Concerning the saws for sharpening, the ideal would be if you can bring some large crapy saw so you can practice with. For the silky saws what I do is to touch the top facet with a diamond file. This is relatively easy to do but it would be better if you have some non-hardened large (doesn't matter if it's a western) saw that you can practice on. In my course in Chile I give a pruning saw to my students so they can practice (you will most probably make the saw worse before you make it better, so no point in practicing with a good saw). Last year we sharpened a two-man saw, as you see in the pictures. That's a great size to practice.
If you have any questions or comments just let me know. Here the pics.
