Paul Sellers video

[Cheshirechappie]

Basically I intend to continue saying what I think, for evermore. :roll:
It'd be less fraught if people stuck to issues instead of personalising things and bandying insults about.
NB "crazy sharpening" is a trivial fair comment IMHO and hardly an issue to get self righteous about. Irritating perhaps, but then we are grownups and it's not a personal comment. I'll continue saying it.
I've had to run the gauntlet through pages of abuse for daring to suggest alternatives. Riots in the forums and big schisms as some may remember. Now it's broadly acceptable to mention rounded bevels and oil stones. The strange thing about it is the way they were written out of the book - I'm still not sure how, when or why this happened.
Typically odd and unacceptable is the hysteria which greeted my recent explanation of scrub planes and camber. I would have expanded on that trivial theme but feel that there is a weird form of censorship going on here - why should I have to run the gauntlet over such little topics? "Silly" or "deluded" is also not the language of thoughtful debate.

There are ways of saying what you think, though. It's not like banter in the pub where facial expression and tone of voice can be gauged, so what may have been written as 'banter' may come across in the pixels on a screen many miles away as insulting. Getting the tone right all the time isn't easy - I wouldn't claim that I always get it right - but it's worth trying to keep things fairly neutral. It avoids misunderstandings and unpleasantness.

Perhaps it's worth a think about the use of the phrase 'crazy sharpeners'. It's fine to explain the benefits of off-hand sharpening on an oilstone (I off-hand sharpen myself, sometimes on ceramic stones and sometimes on a combination India and a Dragon's Tongue slate - the method suits me and gives me edges that suit my work), but some people just don't get on with freehand shapening at all, and find they can get better results, or more consistent results, using other methods. If their method works for them, when freehand shapening doesn't work so well, they may be rather insulted to be called a 'crazy sharpener'. After all, you're insulted by Bugbear's reference to court jester speaking truth to power, yet I read that phrase as a toned-down metaphor.

One of the downsides of abusive language on internet forums is that it invariably attracts more abuse in response. One way to avoid abuse is to think carefully before using language that might be interpreted as insulting. Don't dish it out if you don't want it back.

Putting foward ideas, relating experience, thoughtful debate - fine, that's what we're here for. But there are more ways than one to do almost anything, and other views may be just as valid. "Different people, different ways" as D.H.Lawrence once wrote.

 

[Sgian Dubh]

I might think you were interested in discussion (as you claim) if I'd ever seen you acknowledge the merit of someone else's idea and change your mind, but in 7000 posts, I don't recall it happening. BugBear

BB, he merits my description of learning to sharpen back in the dark days of the 1970s enough to put a link to its URL on his website. I don't think what I said in my description caused him to change his mind about anything though.

As to this thread, apart from the first post which linked to an interesting and relatively low cost and simple method of work which is, incidentally, not new (no bad thing necessarily), the rest of it is all pretty much the usual mixture of vinegar, p*ss and wind, and until this point not in my opinion worth a contribution from me (too many other things more interesting to do): and Jacob should probably have abandoned contributing to it about 170 posts back and just left the darned thing to wither naturally. Slainte.

 

[bugbear]

On the stupid issue of scrub planes/camber I happen to be right

You happen to be wrong, and I provided evidence, analysis and (finally) proven deductions to that end.

You provide (endlessly, stridently) repeated assertions.

Camber works (most people have experienced and enjoyed this), but semi circle is not optimal under any plausible assumptions.

Simples. Reread the thread for detailed reasoning.

BugBear