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Family Handyman
Old chisels and other cutting tools won’t stay sharp forever, but they can cut as good as new again after a proper sharpening. The best sharpening method I know of makes use of a bench top grinder outfitted with a hard, felt buffing wheel.
Hold the beveled edge of the tool tangent to the wheel, carefully buffing it down to a fine, razor-sharp edge. Done correctly, this method can get your chisels sharper than when they were new.
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If your thickness planer isn’t planing wood as well as it once did, leaving ridges on what should be a smooth surface, fixing it might be simpler than you think.
Start by raising the planer as high as it will go. Then rub some paste wax over the bed of the tool. Use a clean shop cloth to ensure full, even coverage. The wax will help wood feed through the planer smoothly again. Then remove the top of the tool, loosen the bolts holding one of the blades to the cutter head, and shift that blade slightly to one side. This will fix the ridge problem and get your planer blades cutting smoothly again.
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Family Handyman
If your jointer isn’t cutting properly, the blades are probably the problem. Unplug the jointer, then retract the guard and remove the bolts holding the blades in place. Purchase new, matching blades, if needed, and then install them in the cutter head.
The trick to great jointer performance is making sure the blades are all the same height in the cutter head, within a few thousandths of an inch. Achieve this by laying a straight piece of wood over the blades, then rotating the cutter head until the first blade touches the wood. Mark that spot on the wood with a sharp pencil. Then mark the wood again at the point where the blade leaves the wood, as you continue rotating the cutter.
Repeat for the other blades, making sure the distance between the marks is consistent. Do this correctly and your jointer will cut great again.