Wiley Horne
Hi David and all,

Like Bruce, I’m really pleased. In my case, it’s with hard Japanese chisels. Mortising in red oak. I have done three repetitions with an Imai 1/4” mortise chisel (white steel #1). Each mortise was the chisel width, 1-1/2” long and 1” deep. In each case, I logged 100 strikes with a vera wood mallet, almost as hard as I could hit (harder than for an actual mortise). That got me to the depth and width, though I should say I don’t do heavy levering with a mortise chisel. Preparation: Chisel was sharpened flat bevel to ~31-32 degrees cutting angle, newsprint carving sharp; buffing then took it to 34-35 degree cutting angle. Result: zero chipping in any of the tests. I never had a bad chipping problem, but would occasionally lose a tiny triangle off a corner in some woods, like in satinwood or hard maple.

So. Buffing is great for soft chisels. And also for very hard chisels. Deals with folding and chipping.

Wiley