I posted this in a thread but it's something worth putting here for posterity too. Hope it helps some of you.
ut in a flat line and wanted badly to actually dive into the work. It SEEMED like a good idea but was a total disaster.
On the other hand by far the most typical factory sharpening is the hard beveled shape shown in "B". I tried to show why this isn't a good detail carving shape in the second part of the sketch below showing how the hard heel will lever up the actual cutting edge. This makes it tough to maintain a nice flowing cut and doubly difficult to make a neatly curved hollowed cut.
The sweet spot is the apple seed shape where the part of the bevel that we use to guide the cut is immediately behind the cutting edge and the rest flows smoothly up and out of the way. This makes our lives easier when it comes to carving shapes and nice details.
Did some reading and learned about the better and more durable "apple seed" shape. But even there we walk a fine line between too blunt and edge to work well in soft balsa and too sharp which tries to act too much like "A" and wedge itself deeper too easily. Then there's the compromise of a finer angle which proves to be less durable and going too blunt and having a durable edge but one that needs too extreme an angle to the surface before the cutting edge ingages and a shaving comes up. Basically Papa Bear's knife, Momma Bear's knife and Baby Bear's knife....
I went down and
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