Bill Tindall
If the search function works one can find a question I posed on Badger Pond that got a friend and I involved in "better" steel. I don't remember how long ago Badger Pond was active but it has been a while. I asked how come we used long edge lived steel like M2 for jointer knives and not hand tool blades? The response from the experts of the day was, and still continues to be in some quarters, for example Chris Schwartz's Blog, "these steels CAN'T be sharpened to as high a degree as carbon steel". We now have ample evidence, even scientifically validated evidence, that this claim is baloney. Yet the myth persists even today in some parts. The facts are that few were willing to challenge these myths with experiments to reveal the utility of these metals and abrasives. And even today many won't accept the results and even dismiss the efforts to investigate these areas.

Without doubt in the tool rooms of machine shops the properties of higher performance steels and the means of abrading them was well known. But this information has only recently been infused into the ultraconservative woodworking community. I now have references to using diamonds on tool steels that date to the 1940's. But I never met anyone using this information to make their life easier in a wood working shop until most recently.