Tap, tap, tapping, tap, tap

[John Whitley]

Well, that was a bit more work than anticipated. I ordered three chu-usu nomi and two kinari nomi for an upcoming workshop. As it turns out, two had significant corner dings. This probably occurred in shipping, but wasn’t obvious from the packaging, and I didn’t have time to exchange them. So off to the stones I went. One damaged kinari nomi was a real pain: I flattened the back, ground out the damage, and got the bevel off the finish stone... only to have the previously-damaged corner chip out again from a now-exposed deeper fracture. Ugh. That meant grinding out the new chip, now past the top of the ura, then tapping out to help reestablish the ura and reflattening the back, then resharpening... The other damaged chisel, a 48mm chu-usu nomi happened to be significantly cupped along the cutting edge, so yet more tapping out indicated.

Lessons learned:

• It’s nice to note that my tapping out is just a reliable skill now, effective and without fuss.
• Inspect those tool orders promptly and carefully.
• The Naniwa 400 grit stone (Super Ceramic) I picked up as part of this process was a champ for the heavier cutting work.