Today, as you might be able to tell from the photos , I began the chip carving. It's so nice finally having a knife that works! I'm generally pretty good about stropping my knives to keep them sharp as I carve, typically about every 15 to 30 minutes, but I've found that this chip carving knife performs noticibly better If I strop it after I finish a square, about 12 cuts. I mean it's NOTICABLY better. I suspect that it is more about the polish on the blade than the sharpness. Down here in Flor-I-da it's so humid that you can get microscopic beads of moisture on a metal surface after just a few minutes. Moisture on a blade means binding in the wood. At least that's my theory. When it's humid down here EVERYTHING is damp! The medallion is done and half of the squares. Tomorrow the rest, and then on to the bowl. BTW, that pile of chips is the result of about 1.5 hours of carving. Once you start on the finish work, the volume of the chip pile decreases as the carving time increases.