Dennis Heyza wrote:
> Dwight writes -
>
>> I was very much put off when an experienced handtool woodworker proclaimed
the eminence of Mr. Seller's edge sharpening method, which he then proceeded to
demonstrate
>
> While I personally do not use Mr. Sellers method, many of the wooden bench
planes I've owned over the years came with irons that had a slightly convex
bezel. Not sure that validates the approach historically but they certainly
appeared to have been purposefully done.

I don't think so; the commonest technique in reference material from 1830-1970
is "double bevel" , where you use a coarse process (e.g. grinding) at around 25
degrees
and a fine process (e.g. natural oilstone) at 30.

If you do this by hand, with a bit of slop, the bevel gets a bit convex.

So in this view, a convex bevel is a (undesired) side effect of double bevel
sharpening.

Indeed, many of the texts have nice illustrations of round bevels
with captions along the line of "when it's looks like this, is may be time to
regrind"

So, the expectation was that flat double bevels where the goal, but that
convexity
would develop naturally. When the convexity becomes excessive, remove it.

So any tool found in the wild would simply be on a point between these two
extremes
from "freshly ground" to "convex and needs rerinding".

   BugBear