Re: grinding a camber, anyone?
ThomD
>There is ample evidence that craftsmen intentionally ground camber in, camber varies across the set of planes, and so no one set of stones would produce the ideal result for every blade. And also the individual stones hollowed at different rates so there wouldn't be any consistency moving between grits. We also have living traditions like in Japan where this skill is observed and passed down, even in the absence of monthly magazine deadlines to meet with new insight.
Any historical craftsman who could keep molding planes, gouges etc... in fighting form wouldn't have blanched that much over cambering cutters. Odate recently complained that he found it nearly impossible to do. But his tradition includes hyper polishing stones. There it does get tricky, because maintaining a camber with extremely fine grits, without perfect stone to tool fit gets pretty hairy. But with fast cutting stones it isn't too bad.
Frank, I'm sure you will manage fine. Don't go overboard with the grinding at first, the plane will tell you how far you need go, and whether it is a regrind job, or something you can do on your whetstones.
Blue is way to far on some tools, though not on all, try to keep any discoloration completely at bay. Blue past most hard tools, with good edge holding, unless HSS.
Any time you want to really reshape an edge it is safer to grind the new profile blunt, then grind in the bevel. This means the edge spends much less time at the fine point while grinding, and heat doesn't concentrate.