Yes, that silica is a fantastic blade unsharpener. I was doing som
mahogany legs on my lathe. Each leg took 40 minutes, plus the time to
resharpen the tools. Even carbide tools have a tough time against silica.
Quartz is somewhat harder than wood.

Michael


"Emiliano Molina" wrote in message
...
Frank,

Thanks for your advice. From your post it seems like you wouldn't
expect me to have to sharpen my plane more than once per board. In
reality I find that I have to do it at least twice per surface.

At the start I thought this was quite normal because of all the grit
embedded in the wood. Now that I am down to clean wood I wonder if it
could be because of the wood itself. In certain parts it has brown
'crystal' veins through it.

Is that the silica I keep on hearing about, the great blade unsharpener?

Regards

Emiliano