Post #141476 by Benzart on Wed, Feb 16, 2005 5:50 AM

Yes Cheeky, that cracking is a Sad end to a good chisel. What Usually causes that cracking is improper sharpening. The V-tool is actually 3 chisels in 1 the 2 sides are lke straight chisels and the "Foot" is a gouge. . Sharpenint the V is a 3 step process and the most common mistake is OVER Sharpening the foot. As you sharpen the sides, the foot ( the area on the bottom outside of the tool where the 2 sides meet) starts to protrude. That proturbence(?) is called a "Beak" because thats what it looks like and That portion needs to be sharpened just like a gouge with the Rolling motion from side to side. Look at it under a magnifying glass and you will see it, a perfect mini gouge. Over sharpening this area, thins it at the outside edges og the gouge so what you end up with on the tool is: 1 straight side and a thin metal strip, a gouge and a thin strip and another straight side. Those thin parts will Always crack. I learned that the hard way.
JUST to Confuse you, the Japanese style of V-tool is created in such a way as to NOT Have that middle gouge part instead having a sharp angle. It can suffer the same fate of cracking though from improper sharpening also, but it is not as easy to do and therefore dosen't happen too often. just keep the angles even and true.
The Best thing you can do while sharpening is to look at your edge thru a magnifying glass often to See how the edge is going.
Hope this helps