Thanks guys. I didn't have any real time in the shop to speak of last night but I did manage to hone up the 18mm. I put the whole back on my 8k running parrallel to the stone to see where I was starting from. It showed a slight concavity down the length, which I consider a good thing, and a low area just behind the cutting edge, which needed to be honed out. Put as much of the chisel as would fit on my 800 perpendicular the length (so normal) and worked the back until the whole area behind the cutting edge was being hit. This went very VERY quickly...like maybe 40 strokes on the 800, until the whole area behind he cutting edge was hit.
Took the chisel to my 8k and then to CrOx on my hard urethane strop and got it widdling hanging hairs in no time. I probably won't continue to work the whole back in the future as the back should never need to be put on anything other than my finest stones, but it is nice that came as flat as is did and that the biggest out of flat that it is is a concavity down the length, again, a good thing.
Anyway, WOW such nice steel. I've only ever has one other chisel (a vintage, Buck I think, parer) that I could get to cut hanging hairs. More importantly this KI did indeed grease through both super soft white pine and hard maple end grain. There were 2 streaks in the otherwise burnished end grain indicating that there are either a couple deeper scratches/mill marks or micro chips in the edge that I didn't fully hone out. For most chisels I would probably just let them get worked out in subsequent honings but because the plan with these chisels is to rarely need to drop them below 8k (on bevel or back) I'll probably go back and work them out sooner than later...shouldn't take more than a minute or two though.
Thanks for the advice guys...yeah, really not that different from a Western chisel, but I'm glad I asked. There's just so little steel on the back I can see how lack of care or too heavy of a hand in the wrong place could yield a less than ideal result, in a way that it wouldn't on a western chisel. And Dave, thanks for recommending these things to me...really just such nice chisels.
Wilbur, yeah, one of these days I'll come crash your workshop...lord knows when, time is always hard to come by. If nothing else I'll bring my Kanna along as I never did get that thing working very well.
Last edited by Chris Griggs; 06-04-2013 at 9:05 AM.
Woodworking is terrific for keeping in shape, but it's also a deadly serious killing system...