Spent the week at the wheel. The blade I'm reworking has been on the bench for six months — it needs the original bevel re-cut because someone (me) over-honed the heel last winter.
Bench-grinding is a kind of meditation that disguises itself as labor. You can't rush it. The wheel doesn't care about your timeline. If you push too hard you burn the temper out of the steel, and you can't put temper back. So you take a pass. You check the angle on the gauge. You take another pass.
The wheel teaches the hand
By the third day my forearm has stopped fighting the wheel. My shoulder has stopped pretending it's the muscle that matters. The bevel is coming back, and so is the part of the brain that thinks at the speed of metal.
This is the part of the work that doesn't show up in the catalog photo. The catalog photo is the result. The result is what happens after a thousand passes you'll never count.
Tools on the wall
The wall above the wheel has six knives that aren't finished. Three of them are mine. One belongs to my grandfather. Two are for customers who don't know they're getting a re-grind in the post.
They'll wait. The wheel waits for nothing, but the knives are patient.