Rather than risk derailing the thread about the Veritas MKII honing guide, I am starting a new thread on a relevant question.
Specifically, when, in your experience, does it really matter if your edge is slightly out of square on chisels or plane blades? I'm not talking about an unintentional skew chisel or a plane blade skewed beyond the limits of the lateral adjuster--just a slight skew.
Maybe I'm misconstruing things I've read here and elsewhere, but there seems to be a lot of effort that goes into getting the edge perfectly square to the sides of the blade and stress associated with a small skew. My work seems to tell me that a perfectly square edge is almost always unnecessary and a small skew is most often nothing to worry about. Am I missing something?
To be clear, I am not talking about ignoring manufacturing issues on a honing guide (which I agree are a problem independent of whether or not the skew itself is an issue): this is a general question about the squareness of the edge itself that probably applies more to those of us who sharpen freehand.
Thanks in advance.
Michael Bulatowicz