Thread: Thoughts on "Less is more." in honing

Absolutely no disrespect meant to you at all Jimmy It just struck me as rather humorous that both threads just happened to appear on my "new posts" screen right next to each other....

I also am more of the less is more school... I count, but I use feel more than anything else as to the proper time to change things up....Whether it be from the TNT, TPT, or just how the edge feels as it goes across the hone....

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Absolutely no disrespect meant to you at all Jimmy It just struck me as rather humorous that both threads just happened to appear on my "new posts" screen right next to each other....

I also am more of the less is more school... I count, but I use feel more than anything else as to the proper time to change things up....Whether it be from the TNT, TPT, or just how the edge feels as it goes across the hone....

Thanks Glen for clarifying that but I didn't interpret your post that way at all. I just wanted to point out to Kevin, Ivan and Jim that I am not knocking there approach to honing in case anyone got the wrong impression.

I'm not knocking yours either. when there are scratches I don't worry. When there are no scratches I change the battery in my mini scope. I can always find something and most often there are plenty. Next year I expect there to be consistently fewer. Maybe it wont work out that way.

Originally Posted by kevint

I'm not knocking yours either. when there are scratches I don't worry. When there are no scratches I change the battery in my mini scope. I can always find something and most often there are plenty. Next year I expect there to be consistently fewer. Maybe it wont work out that way.

I've slept on it and been thinking about it this morning. I am still learning to sharpen razors. I think that there is a science to it and the less is more reflects that but there is also an art and the bevel polishers reflect that aspect.

I feel that if I ever get to the place where I know what I am doing well enough to have confidence that I can pick up a razor regardless of condition and intuitively know what it needs and how to apply it then i will be ready to move on to the artistic level of the bevel polishers. I'm just not there yet. If I get there I will have the choice of going beyond the pragmatic level to the artistic.

At the risk of being redundant I will reiterate that my reason for the OP was in case there were new honers or senior members who, like me, may have been confused by what seemed to me to be the contradiction in 'less is more' and polishing the bevel for the sake of art rather than for the shave quality.

The pragmatic approach being that I want to get this razor to give me a superlative shave and the artistic approach being to go above and beyond that capacity and to bring the honing up to the level of the art of Japanese tool sharpening. In thinking about it this morning I think that either approach is valid but they are separate and distinct and the latter is more an advanced technique than the former. Someday I may get there.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I've slept on it and been thinking about it this morning. I am still learning to sharpen razors. I think that there is a science to it and the less is more reflects that but there is also an art and the bevel polishers reflect that aspect.

I feel that if I ever get to the place where I know what I am doing well enough to have confidence that I can pick up a razor regardless of condition and intuitively know what it needs and how to apply it then i will be ready to move on to the artistic level of the bevel polishers. I'm just not there yet. If I get there I will have the choice of going beyond the pragmatic level to the artistic.

At the risk of being redundant I will reiterate that my reason for the OP was in case there were new honers or senior members who, like me, may have been confused by what seemed to me to be the contradiction in 'less is more' and polishing the bevel for the sake of art rather than for the shave quality.

The pragmatic approach being that I want to get this razor to give me a superlative shave and the artistic approach being to go above and beyond that capacity and to bring the honing up to the level of the art of Japanese tool sharpening. In thinking about it this morning I think that either approach is valid but they are separate and distinct and the latter is more an advanced technique than the former. Someday I may get there.

I wanted to add the rest to what you might have read previously, because I don't keep pushing it to get rid of them by intent. But I do look from time to time while trying to keep a mental log of what is happening, hopefully getting better. What I really hope to develop is that same intuition you describe.

Not to keep whipping it but they should self erase via progression. I do not use paste either. When I have tried them the result is a sharper, easier shaving edge- the same as you've noticed.

I do not believe Glen or Lynn finish on the hone with 20 laps on leather before shipping. We need to consider the whole process before axioms are applied.

Originally Posted by kevint

I wanted to add the rest to what you might have read previously, because I don't keep pushing it to get rid of them by intent. But I do look from time to time while trying to keep a mental log of what is happening, hopefully getting better. What I really hope to develop is that same intuition you describe.

Not to keep whipping it but they should self erase via progression. I do not use paste either. When I have tried them the result is a sharper, easier shaving edge- the same as you've noticed.

I do not believe Glen or Lynn finish on the hone with 20 laps on leather before shipping. We need to consider the whole process before axioms are applied.

I don't dispute that. OTOH, when I was new here and struggling with it I thought that if they weren't disappearing I wasn't adequately sharp and maybe I was. I may have gone past it trying to remove scratches that were functionally inconsequential. It wasn't until I bought three razors that Lynn had honed from three different vendors that I had the epiphany.

They were HHT sharp and shaved wonderfully yet under magnification they didn't have the polished bevels that I had been reading about. Subsequent razors from Lynn and other honemiesters showed me that maybe the polished edge was an end in itself and not necessary for a quality shaving sharp edge.

As far as what any of the pro honemiesters do to finish before shipping, I'm not privey to that information. Whatever it is it seems to be working so I guess they don't need to fix it.

I always thought
Less is more means =

Code:

 By doing less strokes you are saving more razor's(metal).

I could be wrong . Been there before

Honestly my bevels look near perfect under a 40x loupe right up until the point of using a strop....

I wish I could send them out that way, but through experience I have found that I better strop them up or I will be re-honing edges that somebody destroyed on their strop....

Now if either of you want to send me a razor I will send it back to you at that level so you can check it out under higher mag to see what you can see... I have never bothered with higher than my 40x ....
I know there are striations in the bevel though, there would have to be...

You know Jimmy, people like you and this post are what makes the SRP a awsome place. I know from an earlier post you think I am worreid about scratches.
(All I was saying if you read back on the post is that I was not convinced that the sweet 16000 was as gentle to some steels as it should be. Personally, between us on that part, I am super glad I tried the stone the Japanese use.)
This is good constructive material that will save many a razor from early death. Bud said that earlier and had a great post on that the other day. So you are giving a healthy balance even as one who is a hone addict that perfection does not have to look perfect. That makes tons of sense.
Mike

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Honestly my bevels look near perfect under a 40x loupe right up until the point of using a strop....

I wish I could send them out that way, but through experience I have found that I better strop them up or I will be re-honing edges that somebody destroyed on their strop....

Now if either of you want to send me a razor I will send it back to you at that level so you can check it out under higher mag to see what you can see... I have never bothered with higher than my 40x ....
I know there are striations in the bevel though, there would have to be...

Glen,
They might look a lot prettier than you think. I noticed that with stropping too. What happened for me is that it was strop material itself on the bevel. i don't know what made me do it but I stropped on a paper towel roll after the leather one time and looked again and it looked just like the stone it came off. But that was just the leather not the canvass.I never looked after canvass.IMHObservation.
Mike