Steve Voigt
After going round and round on this for years now, I've started to think that most of the folks who've tried--but not yet succeeded--to learn the cap iron are having more problems with tuning than with distance. I've run into a lot of people who say they've set the cap super close, but didn't get the hoped for result. On questioning, it turns out that one of the following applies:
- there's no steeper microbevel on their LN/LV/Hock cap iron.
- the cap iron is too blunt or has a flat on the tip.
- the cap iron doesn't mate with the back of the cutter properly, so shavings jam.
- the mouth is too tight, perhaps combined with an overly large or steep microbevel on the cap, so shavings jam.

I guess this is progress though. We used to fight with people who insisted it was impossible to set the cap close enough to make a difference. That mostly seems to have gone away. Now it seems that folks, like Don in the previous post, just genuinely want to know, and don't bring a lot of preconceptions to the table. I'll take it.