Finally my plane blade made the back of my left hand hairless! I
followed a modified Scary Sharp system down to 0.5 u paper on my
Stanley Sweetheart blade. The method I used is described here

http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/

It was really cool to see the wire edge floating around in the baby
oil.

With a sharp blade and after using a bit of candle wax on the sole of
the plane I cannot believe how easily my run-of-the-mill stanley #5
plane slices though hard maple _against_ the grain!

Why is the sole just behind the blade turning yellow? Is this the
patina I'be been reading about? Ever since I scraped the sole of my
plane flat I've pretty much only planned natural hard maple.

Thanks,
Peter