david weaver
..in the case of this test, I'm not finding anything that wouldn't sand off with 400 grit paper in terms of the defects described.

The populace hates what I say when any other quality defects are mentioned - they're all preventable. When an iron sustains a serious nick (like hitting a stray particle on a surface or something that shouldn't be there), the defects might be big enough that you'd have to sand twice with 400 grit.

There are some tiny pin knots and other grain reversals from time to time in the board I'm planing, so I can see whether or not defects that would create more work occur, but the quality of the finish other than the tiny lines is similar. if anything, the alloyed irons are retaining brightness longer, but it's too early to tell if that'll be the case for more than the second set of shavings.

I think a shaving lifter could probably rely on very light scraping and sanding to remove defects. The cap is going to prevent any threat to more subsequent work than that all the way to dull for all of the irons (at least i hope that's the case).