Thanks Dave. I'll need to get home and put one of my western chisels on a stone to see how this is different from what I normally do. I think, that while I typically apply the most pressure with my left hand holding down the tip I still use my right hand (the one closer to the handle)to apply some pressure and also just to help with the back and forth motion. Sounds like with these I really want to leave the right hand out of the mix and just use it to support the handle.
I do do the on and off the stone back and forth thing sometimes when preparing western chisels to deliberately work the inside of the back more create a slight concavity down the length of the chisel but TOTALLY see how that would be a no no for a japanese chisel.
I think I'll start by trying to work the whole back...if they're almost flat anyway, might as well try and keep them that way. My finish stone will quickly show how far off they are. As far as fitting the whole blade on the stone, is there any reason not to hold the blade to it run down the length of the stone and just do short side to side motions across the width? What about back and forth motions with motions with the whole back on the stone? The handles are canted up just enough that I could get a pretty good motion moving forward and back and still keep the whole back in contact with the stone.
The hollows on these things are incredible by the way...the back is almost entirely hollow. Pretty sweet.
Last edited by Chris Griggs; 06-03-2013 at 2:02 PM.
Woodworking is terrific for keeping in shape, but it's also a deadly serious killing system...