Schtoo
Not well enough...

Read it? Well enough to scare the locals...

I've got it labelled as a 'control iron/chip breaker'. The first is roughly what osae-gane means, the second is the commonly accepted term for what it is.

What I will do is accost and hassle as many folks as I can find when I head into Miki for their 'planing party' and see what they think it does. I'm pretty sure that they'll tell me "it's to bend/break the shaving so the wood won't be torn up before the blade gets to it".

My own thoughts?

I don't care what it's called. I'm not into the semantics of it, I just know what it is and what it does and that it's another arrow in the quiver when it comes to planing wood.

Normally, I set it well back from the edge in Japanese planes and leave it in the plane so it doesn't get lost and deflects shavings away from the pin, because I'm too lazy to remove the pin. I have in the past used it for what it was meant for, and while it's not a substitute for a good eye and a sharp blade, it's often enough to make a plane that's just slightly tearing out to start behaving itself.

The reason why it's in kanna?

The widely held reason is because it's a crutch for less than excellent planing folks after many of the really good planer folk weren't able to plane away after WWII.

I think (and I can easily find out yeah or neah) that it's also because after WWII there was an awful lot of planing to be done and folks couldn't be fussy about what they were planing. The extra bit of metal with the elusive name allowed planing folks, skilled or not, to cleanly plane crap wood to a standard that was acceptable.

Or in other words, another arrow in the quiver.

(Of side interest is the hollow in the back of the blade itself. Yes, it makes flattening and sharpening easier. It also allows the shaving to get out unimpeded by rubbing against anything. Sticking a great big road block in the way goes completely against that principle, and folks around here aren't inclined to make things difficult just for a larf. And no, that's not my idea. That's from the folks who make the danged things.)

Now, what might be of interest here is that 'planing party' I mentioned. I'll be attending not as a spectator, I'm supposed to be giving a presentation on Western planes.

I was asked to do it by the folks at Tsunesaburo, and for some crazy reason, they've seen fit to pay my traveling expenses to get there and are also providing lunch and an interpreter (because my spoken Japanese isn't good enough for that! 1 on 1, yes. To a crowd of salivating savages, no.)

So, if I need to know exactly what that bit of mystery material is for, I have an idea that I'll be able to find out in explicit, uncensored and gory details.

That, and Mr. T the second and I get on like a house on fire. We'll pick up on our chip breaker debate where we left off last year.

Ya'll play nice now.

Stu.