On Wednesday, March 4, 2015 at 2:29:20 PM UTC-5, Greg Guarino wrote:
On 3/2/2015 7:43 AM, Spalted Walt wrote:
A sharpened steel wedge in a block of wood that will, when set up
right, pull off gossamer shavings leaving a polished finish straight
off the tool.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/Tsm-YrGXes8


It does seem awfully odd that they have a competition like this, but the
fact that it draws an audience suggests an admiration for craftsmanship
and precision that's hard to argue with.

Greg,

Perhaps it's odd and perhaps not. I belong to a woodworking club on Long Island and we hold a plane shaving contest along with our annual show. Usually the board to be planed is less than 2" wide. You must have a continuous shaving along the 8 or 10 ft. length and the thinnest one wins. I think last year the winning shaving was about 0.0012" thick.

There's a variety of woodworkers in my club and, I suppose, worldwide. Some couldn't care less about using a hand plane and some enjoy trying to fine tune their tools to perform to the extreme.

I like to think I'm somewhere in the middle.

Bill Leonhardt