david weaver
.. at the planing party will be top quality stuff where cutting it level grain or with the grain will make the chipbreaker less than necessary.

As opposed to "production" planing here where dimensioning wood by hand (or so called wood that some of the lumberyards claim is FAS in the rough) is sort of a production activity. At least it is in my underground bunker, and must've been many years ago. Getting all manners of marks left by the jointer or panel plane (plane, of course, not machine) in short order is the object of the activity. Both of which will leave a reasonable surface for the smoother, but one that may have small tearout in them if some parts of the wood were worked on the diagonal or where the grain has changed direction.

If we had only wonderful wood here that always ran with the grain, we'd have no use for the second iron. Of course, if we had such a thing, people might find the stanley 55 much more useful.

The literature on the JWW site, not one I visit often on purpose, suggests the same regard for using the chipbreaker when needed but still having it provide as little resistance as possible once the shaving has been broken by the very steep but not very deep leading edge of the uragane.

Another little piece of interest that would suggest that it is designed to break chips would be the fact that it's laminated. Given the wear on a chipbreaker in use described by the kato study (and the same wear you'll find on western chipbreakers that are used heavily - they are thin in the middle) one would almost have to conclude the blacksmith intends that edge to sustain wear, or there would be no quality lamination on the second iron.