Quote Originally Posted by Derek Cohen View Post
Now are you saying that the rear of the blade is untouched in its entirety? That I could not understand since sharp required two edges meeting equally. Simply wiping a wire away does not say much about the quality of the edge, only about the steel.
Warren has mentioned this multiple times... I looked over these "old" tools that I picked up closely to see if I coule find one to refute his position... Not one... I say "old" because I doubt the youngest of them is much older than 20 years old... Then there were a couple from somewhere between the 50's and then.. But the oldest of them looked to be over 100 based on the markings... None of them appear to have had the backs flattened or honed like we talk about on here... Either honing 1/4" to 1/2" at the back of the bevel or flattening the whole back... A few of them had backs which had been abused... But none of them looked like they had been flattened... In fact - the actual old sheffield cast steel still had almost all the "mill black" oxide finish intact on the back...

I never paid this much attention the last time I had a bout with old tools 10 or 15 years ago (and incidentally ended up with a couple chisels with giant humps on their backs)...

I personally find chisels much easier to control when the backs are straight enough... Do they need to be optically flat all the way across the entire back? No.. I just need them flat enough so they don't dive into a cut or push up out of a cut when working... And I do like to hone a good flat across the back of the bevel so I know they have a good edge. So I have picked out my candidates and set out flattened the humps and bumps out of their backs so I could get them to register right on the work...

I agree it's a testimony to their skills that they got good results out of chisels that I would have had trouble with on the wood.. But I suppose it was their day job and it's not mine...

In the process - I got impatient and honed the bevels to see how they would hold up on wood... You know - especially with Sir Paul declaring that Aldi chisels are the match of old quality cast steel (they aren't by a long shot in my hands)... I couldn't bring myself to do the evil "Ruler trick" on a chisel back - so I simply stropped them on dry leather... The feather wiped right off and they came out ultra sharp and their edges hold up very very well... Most of the modern alloy steels don't behave this nicely for me... Feather edges and wire edges tend to be much more persistent... And the strop may remove it after carefully honing the bevel and back - but it won't without taking a light pass or two on the stone...

After some test cuts - I finished cleaning up the backs so they would register right on the work..