Hi guys. Today, for the first time ever, I pulled shavings with my MF#9 smoother that were 0.001" thick, and full width. My primary bevel is 25* and the secondary is 30*. I use a veritas mark II honing guide. I hone to 6000 on a shapton glass ceramic. Then, I use a leather strop with green compound (with the iron still in the honing guide). In all cases, I only "pull" the iron - I never "push into" the bevel on any grit, including stropping. I've never gotten better than 0.002" shavings. Many times it's 0.003.
The only thing I did different today was to perform the very last step - stopping on leather with veritas green compound - freehand, instead of using the honing guide. Initially, I thought the results to be a fluke, but I was able to repeat it using another iron.
I'm guessing that since freehanding is less precise than using a guide, I may have put a tertiary bevel on the iron. One that is so small I cannot see it. Does that sound right to you? Absolutely nothing else was different than normal, other than freehanding the stropping.
So I'm trying to decide whether the freehanding somehow caused the improvement, and why.
Thanks,
Fred
Edit. One more difference today - I moved the cap iron as close as I could to the edge of the blade. My guess is it's between 1/32 and 1/64". I was working on pine.