Thread: Life on The Edge, What Is The Same, What Is Different

Originally Posted by 0livia

Michael, first of all thanks for brain gym with this essay.

Personally I do not think that a lot of improvement happened in the hone world of the last 50 years. You can find barber hones and you can find historic recipes to produce hones that are similar to nowadays' japanese water hones in a lot of aspects. What is actually new, is a contemporary style. Shapton Glass hones for example. IMO they are a genuine life style kind of product.

Steel is still the same different and whatever you hone it with doesn't really matter as long as the progression fits.

Good Evening Olivia,
Do you have Lee's tome on sharpening? Hand tool sharp in the 60s in Mckenzie's study was according to Lee equivalent to power tool edges. Power tools use RPMs with edges that would not impress anyone in this forum. I repect the work of both men cited above and their stellar reputations in the field of sharpening. In 95 Lee's edges for his own experiments were as good or better than commercial razor blades at that time. Not my words, not my ideas, Leonard Lee.

Quote Olivia,
"Whether its binder or grain, there are only so many possibilities to make a hone and to sift the material."

Never under estimate the talent involved with materials and the room for technical expansion of those same materials to make a much better product. We are after all in the "nano age" and if we are not getting particles in better arrangements, especially when it comes to hones, we are not with it. Look at a simple elemental carbon, this is just one type of atom and the way it is arranged gives us graphite, soot or a beautiful diamond. That is one element, from the softness of graphite to the hardness of a diamond.
Mike