Winston
I've noticed for a while that the backs of my plane blades never quite seem flat all the way to the edge. Right near the edge, it reflects light slightly differently, indicating that the blade is ever so slightly convex near the edge, and that the reflection sometimes isn't uniform all the way across even after sharpening, indicating some edge damage that wasn't removed.

I think this is because the slight convexity is preventing it from making good contact with the stone. I think the convexity is caused in part by abrasion from the wood shaving rubbing on the back of the blade in a bevel-down plane, and possibly also by the slurry on the sharpening stone .

The purpose of the ura on a Japanese plane blade is to help deal with this problem -- it reduces the amount of work needed for the back of the blade and still sharpen it right up to the edge.

This got me thinking: would it be possible and practical to use a buffing wheel to create a min-ura on a plane blade? By "mini", I mean that it would not be nearly as deep as the ura on a kanna blade. The mini-ura would only need to be deep enough to avoid touching the stone when working the back of the blade on a fine stone.

I don't know enough about using a buffing wheel for this purpose. Anyone with more experience with this: Does it sound feasible? I assume that a much coarser abrasive would be needed.

I have used a grinding wheel to help straighten out a chisel that was very concave, but using one to make a mini ura would require much more precision that I'm capable of. I figure that a buffing wheel would be much more forgiving in terms of technique, but also significantly slower.