So far, I have hammered into shape a bit of steel.
The one on the left is the original. The other two are attempts of mine. Notice that I am not apparently much good at selecting the right size to begin with.
Both of these I think will work, but I want to come a bit closer to the original on the right handed skew blade, which is the middle one.
I do plan to temper and put to use both of these, but I want a matching pair that I made, that are fairly similar. Getting the indentation right on the Japanese Style plane’s bottom edge is harder than it seems. This is a good project for me to learn from.
Bob
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My comment is more of a question here. As far as knife sharpening goes, what grit/micron should I end up with while honing a blade before using the leather strop? I am looking at some Japanese water stones. What is your advice for using them to hone with?
John
I will go ahead and finish some posts on sharpening and put them up. Japanese grit numbers are a bit different than American grit numbers. Probably 1000 would do, 6000 would definitely do.
A good Japanese stone will produce a slurry that consists of water, swarf and grit. The swarf is ground off steel. If you use a light touch, the slurry can produce a keener edge than the grit by itself is able too. The grit in the slurry breaks down and as it fractures it can produce fresh sharp finer grit. So using a light touch and manage the stone surface well can optimize your finish. If you bear down, then the grit of the stone will be the limit of what you can get from it. If you wear the stone unevenly, or do not resurface it regularly, you can also reduce the edge quality that it can produce.
Bob