chisels

[jimialeggio5 at comcast.net]

This is an interesting thread.  

There will be as many way to sharpen as there are personalities
doing the sharpening...and luckily, the differences really have no meaning.

But, small maybe even offhand comments sometimes
offer a really interesting glimpse of a different way to think about things.  
For instance,  Ron wondering about the need for a dead flat polished 
back...makes a really interesting comment about purposely rounding 
the chisel back...Hmmm...an idea that might be worth fooling around with.

My thinking about the need for a polished back is that you're looking for a clean 
precise intersection between the plane of the bevel and the plane of the back.
Flat surfaces are easy to index off of and flatten..thats all. As far as I see it thats 
the only reason to bother flattening/polishing. The japanese idea of the 
blade back relief simply gets extraneous metal out of the way to assist 
in achieving that flatness.  It works for me...but if you can achieve the precise
bevel/back intersection with a rounded back you're all set...I've just found that
flat is simple and easy to achieve (maybe).

Jim I