Originally Posted by
jendeindustries
I'm no gentleman, but I seriously do still want to know how often Howard laps.
What are the tell-tale signs that it is time to lap? I think it is an important question.
As a rule, I lap a stone after each thing I sharpen, and if I am sharpening a bunch of my reed knives, I rotate the stone after one knife, then lap after the second. I do all of my real work on the #220 or #320, which gets rotated with each side of the blade, then lapped to be fresh for the next thing.
To come to Howard's defense, I wanted precision when I first got into sharpening about 8 years ago. It makes a lot of sense, really. An extremely flat stone + an extremely straight, flat bevel = :cen sharp. I was all into the guides while I was still learning the basics. They really helped me on the road to freehand sharpening, which is much less about precision and more about consistency. But there is equipment degradation as well, which is what put me off the high precision track. Freehand gives the sharpener much more control and feedback. Straight razors don't have that issue as much, since they are usually flat on a stone, though.
As a professional sharpener of things other than straight razors myself, I really don't think Howard is off his rocker, a little extreme, perhaps, but when you have to satisfy paying customers with your sharpening, a reputation can easily be tarnished or ruined by an unsatisfied customer. Precision is a good thing that really speeds up the process while minimizing some of the variables. :jedi: