<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16414" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY style="FONT-SIZE: x-small; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style">Hi Terry,</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style">Good News!!</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style">You can send your "dead" chisel to me, I'll pay shipping.   ;-]</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style">It won't be dead.  You can extend the life by lapping the backside of the chisel aggressively, thereby moving the hollow back up the blade a bit.  See this article on the Japan Woodworker site, paragraph 2:</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style"><A href="http://japanwoodworker.com/page.asp?content_id=2744">http://japanwoodworker.com/page.asp?content_id=2744</A></FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style">Of course, if you'd rather not bother with all that fuss, you can still send it to me.  ;-]</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style"></FONT> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style">William R. Monroe</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face="Bookman Old Style"></FONT> </DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- <BR></DIV> <DIV>Something that has been troubling me ever since I bought my Japanese chisel: Starting just a few millimeters back from the sharpened edge, the entire backside has a hollow ground out. Why? Is that to make flattening the backside easier? After many sharpenings, the edge of my chisel is getting very close to the beginning of that hollow. Of course, as soon as the edge gets right up to the hollow, the chisel dies. Is this just a feature to sell more chisels?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Terry Farrell</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>