david weaver
..after honing it at 30 degrees last night and going for more feet, I noticed that it did collect a defect mid test that it didn't at a slightly steeper angle. One time, can't really conclude much from it.

As far as using it when it's posting numbers like 500-550 off of my oilstone regimen, 350 of that being "pure" where the plane stays well in the cut itself, I guess it's a matter of quickly realizing once I go back to dimensioning something that the smoothing is fleeting because the try plane's set the surface up to a near finish level.

The try plane itself is working at a thicker shaving, so I don't know how much ground it can cover, but it's a lot and i'm ready to sharpen it when it's ready to be sharpened.

I just estimated what in my sharpening process 350 feet finish planes, and I'm guessing it's about 8-10 square feet of finished surface (assuming four smoothing passes). That's a lot when dimensioning by hand, and the sharpening process does more than just keep the iron sharp, it keeps it free of defects that may occur due to contamination and keeps the geometry appropriate in regard to both smoothing without leaving tracks and in mating to the cap iron.