Wow! Have you seen the Japanese competition where they make onion skin thin shavings from a ~3 meter long wide board? I'll have to see if I can find the link.

One thing that came to mind here is how early solutions we used to get over the hump of inexperience and lack of skill can be hinderances as we progress. Early on, freehand sharpening is a mess. It's more likely to mess up edges as accomplish anything else. Often, we move to jigs and fixtures to speed up the learning curve. '''''''
So, for example, working out a method and tools to produce en edge that doesn't roll or chip, I can then refresh it a LOT faster, which makes the whole work cycle more favorable. If I don't need to grind damage out, I can just give it a quick touch up and off I go. 1 minute vs thirty minutes.

The thing is, early on, you don't know what you don't know, and even if you did, you may not have the skills to get to where you need to go reliably.

One thing that came to mind here is how early solutions we used to get over the hump of inexperience and lack of skill can be hinderances as we progress. Early on, freehand sharpening is a mess. It's more likely to mess up edges as accomplish anything else. Often, we move to jigs and fixtures to speed up the learning curve. Unfortunately, they have their own disadvantages - slow to setup, fiddly to get right, limited in options, etc, but they get us back to sharp a lot faster and more predictably.

Then, as our skills and abilities progress, we are able to get better results without the extra help, and often move past our early "crutches."

For example, as I got better at it, I tested a lot of edges and decided that using jigs for final honing makes edges that are very sharp, but they fail a lot earlier in use.

The trouble for me became work flow progression. Chipped or rolled edges take WAY longer to correct than worn edges. What should have been a half minute refresh took half an hour. That started a snowball effect... It's going to take forever to sort out anyway, so push further into the dulling cycle before resharpening. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So, for example, working out a method and tools to produce en edge that doesn't roll or chip, I can then refresh it a LOT faster, which makes the whole work cycle more favorable. If I don't need to grind damage out, I can just give it a quick touch up and off I go. 1 minute vs thirty minutes.

The thing is, early on, you don't know what you don't know, and even if you did, you may not have the skills to get to where you need to go reliably.

Sharpening is a huge rabbit hole. I have pretty much everything. I use my Veritas power sharpener on 90% of my plane blades and chisels ending with cotton from an old dress shirt and green compound on the disc.