HALF LAP HONING BURR MAKING?

[Euclid440]

HALF LAP HONING

Recently in another thread the subject of half lap honing came up and the technique was described by some.

I have been a fan of Alex Gilmore’s Ax Method for years and it has produced great results on a variety of stones from synthetics, and Jnats to Arks.

Experimenting with this technique, noted results can vary. If you do back and forth strokes, (note: not the stroke use in the Ax Method), you can/ will create a burr. How large a burr, is dependent on stone grit and technique.

When you do back and forth strokes, half of your strokes are edge trailing. Edge trailing strokes puts the pressure on the back of the bevel and can lift the edge off the stone or make lite contact with the edge. It will also create a longer burr as the excess steel does not get ground off and extends past the straight edge into a ragged edge.

So, on the edge trailing strokes you are either honing on the back of the bevel or creating a burr, unless you have good technique.

The Ax Method is the use of edge leading strokes only. The razor is lifted off the stone for the return stroke. And to minimize any burr created, the stroke count is reduced by half until you are doing single strokes flipping the razor with each set of strokes. For example, 20,10,5,3,2, and 1 stroke.

I have found that you can use a back and forth, edge leading and trailing stroke in the lower grits, bevel setting and mid grit stones, for more aggressive honing. Just cut off the burr once the bevels are flat and or polished.

On your final finishing stone, after jointing the edge to remove any burr and straighten the edge, do only edge leading strokes to prevent creating a burr, and to make a straighter edge.

I have noticed, great edge improvement, on the finishing stone by cutting off the burr with a single jointing stroke and finishing with just edge leading strokes.

You can easily test this technique, by finishing a razor with half lap, back and forth strokes, and shave with the razor, then joint the edge and finish on the same stone, using only edge leading strokes and test shave.

What are your thoughts and experience?