Thread: Hone a straight edge or to a straight edge?

Originally Posted by gssixgun

It is rather interesting that Iwasaki and that one Shapton guy (name escapes me.. Harlan ????) both came up with perpendicular honing strokes..

I have found some use for them when trying to even up a wonky bevel sorry going


Simply more honing gymnastics

AND, those 1-2mm strokes are to continue for 15 minutes!

Jointing is done by holding the blade perpendicular to the stone and stroking the blade back and forth as if you were trying to cut the hone. I call it micro-breadknifing.

The first time I ever saw this done/mentioned was maybe five years ago, by Harrelson Stanley, at that time, and maybe still, the head of Shapton USA. He was, maybe still is, the pre-eminent plane blade/chisel honer in the USA. Harrelson did a video with Howard of The Perfect Edge dot com and honed an old W&B wedge.

When he got to the 16k IIRC he "jointed" the edge. At the time I thought that was awfully strange. I've only done that when I felt it was absolutely necessary. As in an edge that showed some high and low spots on magnification, but it might be a good thing to do if you don't mind the bit of extra work.

Found my review of the vid. He 'jointed' the edge twice, early and late in the process. Here is the review if anyone wants to read of his razor honing method ...... his first time honing a razor BTW, so he is using his tool honing techniques, some of which I, and others, use for razors.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/advan...ng-method.html

I do not follow what Iwaski wrote his book is nice reference though.
I am with Glen, I found out that some razors had that jagged edge, I would see it at the bevel set step. If the jaggedness was not taken care of the final edge was harsh. So in the spirit of a diligent knife sharpener I decide to run the edge on the corner edge of the hone and the jaggedness was gone. After that make sure the bevel is set and that fixes the issue. Usually that issue appears on restored blades.

My theory is when we hone we do 3 things, 1. make the bevels flat, in the plane with the spine, 2. make the bevels meet and 3. straighten the edge.

I like Mainman and Glen run the edge on the corner of the stone lightly to remove any chips and straighten the edge. All my stones have a small bevel honed on the corners about a 1/8 of an inch, so I have a small flat surface for this, equivalent to the 1-2mm movement of the razor on the stone.

Once the bevels are flat, a lot of steel does not have to be removed to get them to meet again once jointed, the bevels are already flat and the edge is straight, they just need to meet.

This works great for chippy edges at the lower grits, 1 & 4K, but really well at the higher grits, 12K and finish stone to get a straight edge.

So the way I look at it is, I am honing to an already straight edge as opposed to creating a straight edge by honing the bevels.

I realize it is a very small difference, as you are really creating a new edge when you hone any way, but it does seem to work for me and is what I thought Iwasaki was talking about with his technique.

I have tried the Iwasaki bread knife method also but the corner Joint is easier to control the pressure or lack of, I think.

It is interesting how we can interpret what Iwasaki wrote differently. He does not say to re-hone the edge, I just thought it was implied and he was only describing the technique to perform the jointing technique.

Originally Posted by Utopian

Jointing is done by holding the blade perpendicular to the stone and stroking the blade back and forth as if you were trying to cut the hone. I call it micro-breadknifing.

I call that breadknifing. Why micro? Just curious.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

By killing the edge (Whatever name you want to use) it helped to smooth and even up the edge from two directions.. simple

Glenn, are you using the TNT to kill the edge or what? There is killing the edge(dulling) and killing the edge(side of a hone)

btw- great post, Euclid440 !

I'll 2nd that, one of the better discussions in quite a while.

All this sounds to me just like what one does with any knife: establish an edge, then lightly run the blade along the hone or a piece of wood or paper or one's thumbnail in order to remove any burrs. Then hone the nice clean edge. It's just a bit more important to do it with a blade one shaves with. ;-)

The link Jimmy posted regarding this method was fascinating, thanks.

Is there a video of this honing method?