Is that where you measure before you cut? I've been thinking about incorporating that technique in my next build...if I can afford it.

sorry folks, i´m too deep in my own, er, thing - didn´t occur to me you guys could not know it.
It´s that thing where you use a thin ruler layed upon an edge on the surface of your fine waterstone and flatten only the utmost tip of the back of your plane blade on the other edge, thus creating a minute back bevel on the tip of the blade. saves lots of time and is quite popular. i believe credit is due to David Charlesworth, or at least he´s the one i got it from in the 1st place. If you search youtube for Mr. charlestorth or LN´s Deneb Puchalsky you should find more info.

Doug: you made me laugh, man. thanks for that, always worth it!

best,
Miguel.

I do something similar in creating a micro bevel but use the Lee Valley honing guide that enable you do cut a micro bevel without taking the blade out of the guide...very accurate.

http://www.leevalley.com/en/Wood/page.aspx?p=33001&cat=1,43072,43078&ap=1

The Charlesworth technique is to put a small bevel on the back of a plane blade/iron. The purpose of it, as I was taught it, is to save time: the back of the plane blade/iron doesn't need to be flattened. The small, localized bevel on the back eliminates that need, while still creating a fine line at the intersection of the bevels of front and back of the iron. Without the bevel on the back, the back of the iron needs to be flattened for a sufficient length that it forms a flat plane to give the needed line-intersection between back and front of the plane iron. For those that have "fettled" plane or chisel blades to get a dead-flat back, the time savings is a few hours of initial work.

I don't use the "trick" since I flattened the back on most of my tools prior to the introduction of the technique. Consequently, using it doesn't save me anything.