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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Mar 2, 2008, at 10:01 AM, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:
> > lust for one of those
> > old sharpeners where you sit on a tiny seat and push foot pedals to
> > power the big stone wheel.
>
> Such a wheel is for gross reshaping of metal, not actual sharpening  
> unless it
> is a cultivator disk or shovel or some such.

Yes, the stone wheel if too rough for real sharpening.
> With a few execptions, you have the sharpening device working the  
> edge as if
> the tool were cutting off a piece of the wheel, file, or stone.  And  
> yet I see
> people most often doing just the opposite!  That is, the wheel wolld  
> be
> turning TOWARD you as if the axe is trying to cut away a piece of  
> the wheel.

Is that how you meant to say it? In both the positive and the negative  
uses you have it, "as if the tool [were cutting] is trying to cut  
[off] away a piece of the wheel.

I wrote a few days ago about the geezer who was consulted on the very  
old question of whether one properly has the wheel turning toward or  
away from the user, and how he responded, always have it turning away  
from you because that way you avoid having water into the face. The  
direction of how the metal is applied to the stone does matter, of  
course, but I suspect that in the wheel stone case, as you note, one  
is not doing fine sharpening so the direction does not matter.

And of course, with a proper rest, the wheel could turn toward or away  
from the user, but the blade edge could be positioned as desired,  
toward or away. Most of us would find it more natural, and by instinct  
safer, to have the edge away from us, but with practice there may be  
little challenge to having it the other way.