If you can remember the big Tom Hanks’ 1994 hit movie Forrest Gump, no doubt you will recall one of the movie’s most repeated lines:

Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are gonna get.

If you have ever received a box of chocolate candies as a gift and had to negotiate it without the help of a map on the lid (those are for cheaters!), the first bite into a piece pulled from the box is always a surprise. Will it be one of the tasty caramels, or will it be something you just don’t like?

In many ways, when a sawyer slices into a log of a maple, cherry, walnut, ash, elm or hundreds of other species, it is a very similar experience. More often than not, you get exactly what you were after – beautiful boards of exceptional character.

But, every so often, there’s a big surprise.

A very pleasant one at that.

Sometimes the boards will display a wavy pattern known as figure. This is not the same as the wood’s grain. According to Eric Poirier of Bell Forest Products, an online wood supplier that specializes in figured lumber, this distinction is very important. “Grain and figure are often confused with one another. The easiest way to differentiate between them is to understand that grain occurs in every board because it is how the tree actually grows. Figure occurs independent of the grain and is actually a defect, which happens to be very rare and sought after.”

Of course, there is an exception to every rule. A ray flake appearance in white or red oaks is actually part of the grain, but it is considered figure by the National Hardwood Lumber Association (NHLA). Go figure.

Figure can occur nearly anywhere in a tree. According to Eric, “It varies from tree to tree and is different with the different types of figure. In bird’s eye, the whole log might be full of bird’s eye or just part of one side of the log might have it. Sometimes the bird’s eye can even start and stop at different points in the life of the tree. There may be some sort of defect in the log that also causes the figure to start or stop at a certain point in the log.”

While figured lumber is beautiful, it is considerably more difficult to work with than non-figured lumber. Curly, tiger, fiddle back, pecky, burl or other beautifully figured woods tend to tear out more, and demand exceptionally sharp tools and care in their milling.

The number and variety of species exhibiting figure can be tremendous. Another great way to add these dramatic woods to a project is through veneering. Joe Goreleski, Jr. of VeneerSupplies.com, has seen a tremendous variety of figured veneers move through of his shop. “To the best of my knowledge, most domestic and exotic woods have the ability to display each type of figure. In my stock, I have some truly rare combinations of species and figure that some would think do not exist.” How rare? Think of such odd specimens as bird’s eye walnut and bubinga burl.

While working with figured hardwoods can be a challenge, Joe says going the figured veneer route takes some practice, but is not very different than working with regular unfigured veneers. According to Joe, “some burls may require grain filler, but the basic veneering skills should be able to get you through with no problems.”

Looking at an unfishished figured board or sheet of veneer may not be impressive. However, once a finish goes on the piece, you’ll immediately understand why woodworkers search out figured boards. These imperfections in the log translate into lustrous whorls, stripes and other features that appear nearly three-dimensional under an oil-based finish.

One issue many woodworkers have during finishing is that boards tending to be splotchy are even more difficult to get finished perfectly. A sanding sealer of a one pound cut of dewaxed shellac applied and sanded down with some 320 grit sandpaper helps to control the blotchiness. Again, these rare specimens require care in all stages of woodworking.

While both Eric and Joe get some incredible specimens through their shops, each has his own preference for his favorite.

Eric leans toward curly maples. “I love the way that the figure runs from the flat-sawn to the quarter-sawn grain. I use it whenever I can in different projects around the house. It is my favorite wood to use because I love seeing the ‘tiger’ stripes when the sunlight hits it just right!”

Joe is more of a tamo ash and walnut burl kinda guy. “But, I have not yet found a figured veneer that I didn’t like.”

Momma always said to keep your options open…

When I turned 14, my dad had a surprise for me.

He handed me a new razor, a can of shaving cream and showed me how to shave.  Even though I was using a safety razor, I still managed to cut myself.  Ahh, the joys of inexperience.

Since then, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the male rite of shaving my face.  Some days, I walk away from the sink in the morning with a perfect shave – feeling fresh and ‘kissably smooth’ according to my wife.  Other days, I swear I took my belt sander to my face – all red, irritated and scraped up.  Since I’m not sure which kind of shave I’ll get, I tend to avoid shaving if at all possible.  Sure, it’s tough to get moving on a Monday morning, but at least my face had a weekend’s rest from the blade.

Later on, when I became a hobby woodworker, I ran into another group of folks who liked to shave – a lot.  And, not just to keep up appearances.

Some of the woodworkers I spoke with had an extreme fascination with sharpening and honing their plane irons and chisels to razor-sharp perfection.  And, with a salesman’s zeal, these folks will call friends and neighbors over to demonstrate how well their blades can clear their arm or leg hairs.  It’s a stunning trick, and I have to hand it to them.  They do have persistence.

But, is sharpening to that keen of an edge really necessary for woodworking?

No one is going to argue with the fact that sharp tools are a pleasure to use.  They are safer, cut more cleanly and make your shop tasks a whole lot more pleasant.  Dull tools will ruin more boards – and hurt more woodworkers – than we can ever fully account for.

But, when should you say ‘when’ during the sharpening process?

Hey, I used to fall into the trap of  meticulously sharpening my chisels and plane irons.  There were times when I used to fuss for half an hour over each edge, honing until the back face of the bevel was reflective enough to signal rescue planes if I was marooned on a desert island.  Then I would flip the blade over and work on the bevel, building a lustrous shine before tipping the edge up enough to create the perfect one degree microbevel.

And, yes, I would then shave arm hairs to prove to myself that the chisels were ready for use.

While sweating over a sharpening job in my shop one hot Florida summer afternoon, the little voice of reason in my head started screaming at me.  “Can we get this over with?  It’s hot, and I want to go inside!  Besides, how much better can that edge really get?”

It was that afternoon when I changed my sharpening procedure and added an important step.  I went to the scrap bin and pulled out a piece of hardwood and  clamped it in my bench vise.  I took the chisel – still far from its mirror-like destiny – and started paring the edge.  The wood yielded.  Easily. In an end grain cut.  With little effort on my part.  Wow.

I was stunned to see how much earlier in the process I could stop with minimal – if any –  effect on the cutting ability.  Not only could I save myself quite a bit of time while sharpening, this result also convinced me that I could sharpen my tools more frequently, without having to take the tool through the onerous process of honing to that fine degree.

My mind then turned to previous episodes of the Woodwright’s Shop, hosted by Roy Underhill.  I have watched Roy for years, working with his planes and chisels in his throwback workshop.  Sure, his tools are plenty sharp, but not so reflective, if you catch my meaning.

While I was reading the Woodwright’s Companion, I noticed that Roy also touched on the fact that woodworkers relied on quarried stones to bring their edges into true.  No, these old masters didn’t get into a heated debate about the micron size of the abrasive they were using – they used the best stones possible to get their blades sharp and then returned to the bench.

And, when they shaved their faces, they didn’t use plane irons – they used straight razors made with much finer and more flexible blades.

When I buy an old plane or chisel, I will regrind the bevel on my Work Sharp 2000, and then either use the Scary Sharp method (sandpaper glued to a piece of float glass) or the DMT Diamond Stone my wife gave me a few birthdays ago.  I’ve gotten so I can regrind and hone an old chisel in about five minutes, and have it cutting easily through wood.  It takes even less time to hone blades that just need some touching up after a project.

I will also use a piece of MDF with some of the Lee Valley green honing compound to put an even finer edge on the edge, but that’s it.

Will woodworkers still hone their irons and chisels to a mirror finish? Of course they will.  There are also people who will shop for stereo systems that faithfully reproduce tones well outside of the normal range of human hearing.  Hey, to each his or her own, and if leaving bare patches of skin on their arms is an outward sign of their sharpening prowess, more power to them.

I already have a mirror in my bathroom so I can see what I’m doing when I pick up my razor to get ready for work in the morning.