You do have a good point Sean. What's the relevance?

For the old guys who were doing everything by hand and had to furnish the Versailles and all those places, i think it was very relevant. And they sure didn't need my measurements, because I believe they intuitively knew all I took so much pain to invest. But they didn't write it down, which shows that you always should document your knowledge.

But what is the relevance for us? When you use planers and thicknessers to dimension your wood, I think it won't matter too much if your final smoothing strokes are a little heavy handed or your blade wears faster (at the same time, A2 and PMV11 are populair because it wears slower). For the few of us who only use handplanes the efficiency is as valid as ever.

I am a hack. I've made a few projects with handtools, the dining table was the largest. I get plenty of tearout with the wood I use, which might be second choice. Using my humble set of vintage planes, the chipbreaker is the only viable way to get good results.