white steel matsumura bench chisel

[Flamone LaChaud]

In theory yes, if used dry. Wouldn't use water tho to make a true slurry. But mine is also not the only way of doing things . . .

[Lasse Hilbrandt]

One would think that using a plate like that with loose grits is going to wear on the plate too ?

[Mark Maleski]

My western chisels are 01, so no, I’ve never used a secondary bevel on them. I do not sharpen with a jig. My plane irons do not get microbevels, which is why I dislike A2 for plane cutters. People with A2, D2, or HSS chisels may disagree with you since those alloys are much harder to sharpen hence the short-cut of a microbevel.

my plane irons are A2 and I don’t microbevel. Can’t be bothered really, i’d rather just sharpen a little more often.

[Vincent Tai]

One would think that using a plate like that with loose grits is going to wear on the plate too ?

Lasse, that is indeed the case. This is true for all hand lapping plates. They need to be resurfaced, precision ground/hand-scraped etc. With other items one can minimize wear greatly by spreading the work around the plate but that is not the case with a chisel like in the video. Wear is not as fast as one would think, and especially so with finer grits. The instructor in the video recommends the slurry of stones over silicon abrasive powders because some coarseness issue; I would recommend to simply get the appropriate abrasive grit or compound for the plate. Coarseness is only a problem with coarse grits; the coarser grits also happen to be more easily obtainable; perhaps the reason why he thinks that the powders may leave scratches. With powders and compounds there is no scrubbing about with an abrasive stone on the plate with the powders and compound, and you can get a lot more powder or compound on to the plate which lets you work quicker. To get the equivalent amount of abrasives onto the plate with a water stone would take a bit of scrubbing about and promotes wear on the plate. Of course if one is a more casual user than this would matter a lot less. Also with care and a bit of spreading around the strokes the water stone may not wear the plate as much.