How long does it take to learn to hone?

Well after spending on hones I realize the rock don't make the man. I understand there is a learning curve but how long? As for tools I have a 220/1K, 4K/8K, Bout with rubbing stone, a big chunk of marble tile to lap on, and even bought the RS $9.99 scope, oh yea and Lynns DVD. I guess you can't buy your way sharp. I thought I had it tonight I honed and got it sharp. I brought it in it shaved pretty good. I thought I would touch up with my Lynn honed Dovo and I wasn't near where I want to be with sharp on the old spike. The dovo just glides across my face the old spike I honed will shave but not near the dovo. Do the dovos just shave well or am I just that miserable with the rock? the dovo is a 5/8 the spike is a 4/8 wedge. I also know that any razor Lynn touched will shave better than my old junk. Will honing be like shaving and one day just click or am I destined to sending my blades back to be tuned up?

Thanks, Don

This is just my opinion, but don't get too caught up over honing. Honing is just one of the trifectum of straight razor shaving (honing, stropping, and prep/lather building), and trying to succeed at honing like Lynn is a pretty lofty goal. And, for what it's worth, you did say that it shaved pretty well, so I think you deserve a pat on the back for that. Honing does take time to learn and I think you'll notice like I have that your shaves will get a lot better with time just because you get better with honing.

Honing is one of those things that plateaus... ie, you make progress for a while as you perfect the technique you're using and eventually it doesn't get any better. To break through, you have to change the way you're doing something. The fun is discovering what ;)

I'm a firm believer that what works for one person will not necessarily work for another. We all have different motor skill abilities, so the trick is to optimize your technique around your physical makeup. Within reason, there's no right and wrong... whatever gives you the best results is what's best for you. Whatever gives me the best results is what's best for me.

And more tools won't necessarily make things better. I have several friends over 75 years of age who have told me that their fathers shaved with a str8 until the day they died and they only had a razor and strop (ie, no hone). None of these guys ever saw their father take the razor to the barber (or anywhere else, for that matter) to be sharpened... they just stropped it til it shaved right... and sometimes that took a while. Now I'm not suggesting that you only use a strop... I'm just telling you that in the past that's all many people had and they managed to get sharp razors and comfortable shaves. :shrug:

Joe - great post.

I myself will be trying to extend indefinitely periods between honing using just a strop + linen, Cromium, and maybe newspaper. So I am all with you on that one.(currently I have not had to hone a razor I am done with - but this is just because I have too many, and am still fine-tuning many of them, with only a few that I don't think I can improve)

However, I also happen to have a couple of old razors, which are far from comfortable to shave with, and I am pretty sure they were used like this. We don't really know how comfortable the shaves for many men were at the time

As for honing - I think Lynn said that if you don't have a decent handle on it by the time you hone your 20th or so razor - maybe it's not your thing.

If you persevere though - I am pretty sure that you won't have to send out razors for touch up all the time

Cheers
Ivo

Honing for me is the next step in my knife sharpening skills. I've gotten into japanese steel for kitchen knives and some of them are thin enough to be called razors. Big razors but hey :p It's alot of trial and error, sure you can watch the masters do it and glean some insight, but the skill is in the "Doing it!" I watch others and try a few things I saw. Did it work for me? Ok this part works but that part confused me. Watch again, try again. Pretty soon you have devoloped your own method that works for you. Practice is the key, never stop trying and never stop learning.

It took me about 4 years to feel good about the concepts and the strokes and the different blades, and feel confident in the final product.

I've only honed a few hundred razors.

From the guys I've read about on here it usually takes only about 6 months.

The big learning curve for me was actually knowing what I was trying to do. The concepts were there but the real understanding was not.

You can get any specific advice on here about honing and its always both right and wrong. Right in concept, but applying what you read to the razor in front of you, with your hand, using your hone, with your knowledge makes all the advice useless, and incorrect.

You've got to understand the concepts completely and know where your razor is on a sharpness "continuum" and know what a truely smooth edge that is ultra sharp actually feels like, not one that some guy thats been honing for a couple of months thinks is sharp simply because it shaves hair.

The biggest epiphany for me was looking at an edge I'd been working on that was shaving poorly under a microscope (and this was a year into the process). That alone, dramatically changed my view.

The next was examining the striation patterns and smoothness of various DE razors under a microscope and defining ways to replicate the edge.

The next one was understanding that any man that shaved back in the day probably understood the concepts; and they had to be easy for a barber to give good shaves all day. There is something dramatically missing from modern man, besides knowledge, that makes honing difficult and I'd say that this is patience. Grab a 4K Norton and no idea what your doing and you can hone for years and get nowhere. Grab the 8K side and spend an evening swiping the blade and it'll get sharp as sh*t eventually. Its the time involved that screws a lot of guys up. Honing should be quick, but learning to hone on a slow hone is so much more intelligent. Personally, I think the 4K side of the Norton should come with a disclaimer. "Warning: Each stroke on this side of the hone requires a permission slip from StraightRazorPlace.com moderators"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AFDavis11

but learning to hone on a slow hone is so much more intelligent. Personally, I think the 4K side of the Norton should come with a disclaimer. "Warning: Each stroke on this side of the hone requires a permission slip from StraightRazorPlace.com moderators"

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Which is exactly why I am avoiding the Nortons. I realise its the norm here on SRP and I am sitting firmly outside the box, but patience is the biggest thing that seems to be missing with the Norton approach. A nice slow natural does the job just as well, and you are almost unable to overhone on these things - your arm would drop off before you got that far.

But then again I am sharpening one razor a week max, not even that, and I can dedicate time to it. If you are sharpening 20 a day, nortons and the correct technique would be the way forward.

I would argue that the slower cutters are a way to build up technique and knowledge faster, ironically because it all happens so slowly. After 5 passes on the 4000 - the first passes you would ever do - you have probably already ireparably altered the blade edge. After 10 minutes on a slow natural you have practised the honing motion way more, and done probably very little to the edge.

The other side to this is that with more strokes there is a bigger risk of more errors creaping in etc - but if you are patient and have not got ADD, you can eliminate that also.

Si

I agree completely, but to be true to our purpose, once you know what your doing the cutting power of the Norton is terrific, and the 8K side is so smooth it produces wicked nice shaving edges. Between the two I would never look at a razor without the Norton handy. Its just the learning part that you have to be mindful of.

How long does it take to master honing a straight razor?

Good question...impossible to answer.

For me, this is kind of like answering the question, "Are you still beating your wife?"

Mastering the hone is like mastering playing the violin or the game of golf. You may get to the point where you can shave with a razor you've honed after a week or two...ahh, mastery! Now compare that edge to a Lynn honed razor...damn, abject failure! As you are learning any of these tasks, where your skill level is currently may be completely acceptable to you, but you can spend a lifetime perfecting the skill.

You've honed a razor and given yourself a decent shave, congratulations, bask in the glory of the moment realizing that you have accomplished something that less than a fraction of a percent of the worldwide male population can do for themselves. Now, go practice some more, work on perfecting each aspect of the process. The journey is much more important than the destination.

Cheers,
Ed

Quote:

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Originally Posted by junkinduck

How long does it take to learn to hone?

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Asking this question is like asking "How many roads must a man walk down?", which I guess means the answer is 42.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mparker762

Asking this question is like asking "How many roads must a man walk down?", which I guess means the answer is 42.

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Isn't the answer ALWAYS 42?

(Big Marvin fan, LOL)

J.

Thanks Ed for the encouragement reading some of the replys I was getting a little discouraged but I think I will "bask" just a little. The old razors I am working on all have too steep of bevels and will require a lot of work. So thanks to all who who encourged me and all of the others that have found this fine form of shaving and helping us get a little more in touch with our manhood and the ways of old.
Don

I too want to send a huge thank you for that info- this has been enourmousily helpful to me too. I've been wondering the same things and been almost afraid to ask what I'm doing wrong or not doing, because I really don't know for sure what I'm doing in the first place.

I'm personally, probabily introducing too many varibles in the equasion to begin with since I'm learning to shave, strop and hone basically at the same time.
I am producing a shavable edge that pulls, but could really be undoing my work at any point in the process. Now I have a better idea of where to start anilysing and how to do so.

Lynns thread on barber hones this week has also been enourmiously helpful.

Nice on the producing a decent edge but you're lucky X is on vacation! :D

Cheers
Ivo

Really hate to say this, but "it depends".
There are so many variables that what takes one a month will take another three.
So, there you have it, Grasshopper.
And yes, the answer is 42.

It's really not that difficult. I pretty much got it down in a couple of days. Now admittedly, I have been working with edged tools and knives for about 40 years, and when I started out my father insisted that if he was going to teach me how to use the tools, I was gong to have to learn how to take care of them as well. So I have been honing and sharpening things for a very long time. When I was first learning, it probably took me about six months before I could put a really good edge on a draw knife (and you don't want to use a dull draw knife).

So technically then, thats 6 months and a few days.

Don't you find it a lot easier to hone a razor than to freehand hone a knife? There is no worrying about getting the angle perfect with a razor as the blade lies against the hone but with a knife and different grinds you have the added problem of duplicating the same angle every time you lift the knife to check the blade, maintaining a constant angle and much more of a smile on most knives.

think it took me about 6 months till I was worth a damn.
I once honed the same full hollow razor for 11 hours straight without getting it sharp!

In the last month something changed and I got a lot better.

Mostly I changed the way I was using my finishing hones.

Also I got a microscope and started looking at lots of razor blades.

Since i didn't have a honemeister blade I took out like 50 DE blades and tried each one till I found one that pulled hard right out of the box.

Guess what? It looked just like my straights under the microscope !!

Now I have several Joe C honed razors and have tried as best I can to match the look.

Patience grasshopper, and remember 42.:roflmao

Anyone interested in attaining skill in any field would do well to familiarise themselves with this study by a chap named Ericsson.

Among the gems of knowledge that this study offers is a unit of measurement. If we stand by the claim that it takes six months to learn to hone, then both of the following test cases will have an identical level of honing skill after a duration of six months:
1) George quits his job, lives in a cave and hones for sixteeen hours a day, every day.

2) Richard, on the rare occasions he's sober enough to handle a razor without losing a finger, puts steel on stone for half an hour a week.

HOURS of study are the unit of measurement with which we should be concerned. George would have 2928 hours of experience honing, whereas Richard would have amassed a paltry 13 hours. Given the choice, to whom would you send your razor for honing?

Another factor that might quicken the process is some knowledge of scientific method. Identification and isolation of variables, gathering of feedback, testing procedure and so forth. The more feedback you can gather, the quicker you can ascertain whether your efforts are helping or harming the edge. The microscope offers an invaluable source of visual clues as to the effects of the variable in question (pressure on blade, grit of hone, stopping technique...etc). Coupling knowledge of a good edge (as confirmed by visual examination of the edge) to the kinesthetic (sensation) and auditory (sounds) cues offered by the razor as it passes over the strop or stone. Conversely, when the feel or sound changes, you can look at the razor to see what changed.

Learn to hone without regular feedback is an exercise in endurance. Because nothing happens quickly (except for damage), every change in a variable must be subject to many, many repititions for microscopic change to define itself as a change for better or worse.

Finally, a wise man once defined insanity as "endlessly doing the same thing whilst expecting different results". I spent four hours honing my razor, but only made an appreciable difference when I thought to ease the pressure on the blade. I made more progress in the fifteen minutes after that epiphany than I had in the two hundred and twenty five that preceded it.
If what you're doing isn't working, change something.

Good point; I'd say the hours of study are varied by the type of instruction and the methods of practice. The students back ground is important too. If he has honed knives before it changes the time (but it doesn't always lessen the time). We also have to decide when do you know how to hone? When you can hone one razor, when you can fix a razor that is ruined? When you can hone smilies?, fix a frown? clean away oxidation, hone a singing razor? Hone stainless? etc.

There is atleast one straight razor shaving clinic that teaches you how to hone a single razor, the one you'll use that night, in about an hour. Now, to say the student has learned to hone might be a stretch.

The assumptions I make when I say 6 months is some guy reading these threads, receiving no instruction, buying a few razors and trying to figure it out himself in the evening while he is doing his regular day job. I think its safe to assume a few posters are probably drunk on occasion, from what I've read anyway.

Or to put it another way, the 6 months comes from watching 8,000 guys enter this forum and try to learn to hone. The post dates are all posted and you can see when they started and when they "got it" very clearly.
This assumes that when they think they got it, they really did. Most of us probably know less about honing then we really do.

I've seen guys who have honed thousands of razors not clearly understood some of the simpliest, most basic ideas and decided they don't work. I've seen guys with a little experience break out a piece of newspaper and hone up a razor. Which one has learned the right way? Got me.

But, six months is a good timeframe to work with, because that is how long it takes for the average person on this forum, which is a pretty good sample.

So feel free to throw out my average based on observation and answer your own question.

How many hours does it take?

Given that my honing experience (in hours) can be counted on the hand of blind butcher, there is no way I could offer an estimate with a straight face.

I'd be interested to see results of a poll of newbie honers and see if any habits and routines are prevalent. If the vast majority put in an hour of honing practice an average of three times a week, then simple arithmetic dictates that approximately 70 hours practice will result in something approaching competancy.

***WARNING! The following is pure conjecture and may depart from sense at any moment.***

Establishing a quantifiable benchmark of competancy presents a challenge. Honemeisters appear to be honemeisters because they recognise they recognise the appropriate time to change a variable, be it sharpening medium or pressure (any more variables?). They recognise the look, feel and sound that signals a change is required. Would a honemeister require a microscope? A honemeister wastes no time performing 50 laps on a 4000 grit stone when 25 would do the job. Is it fair to say that a trait of an amatuer honer is the failure to recognise when one should move on in the honing process? If so, time taken to hone a razor at a defined stage of bluntness could be a method of ascertaining meister-status. The clock stops when a successful hanging hair test is performed on the heel, centre and toe of the blade (would a honemeister be satisfied with that benchmark, or would further subdivision of the edge be necessary?)

- Defining "blunt" and mnufacturing it on demand.

IF time is to be a method of benchmarking, then it is only fair that all test participants start from the same point. What method of wear is commonly experienced, quickly manufactured and replicable? Do the honemeisters find that such an animal as "garden variety blunt razor" exists, or is each razor a fresh and unique challenge? Can two razors which have comparable bluntness take vastly different times to sharpen?

Such a vast topic, about which, I know nothing. :D

Well now I think we're really starting to agree with each other. :D

Only to add a few more thoughts, since you bring up Erricson and I am an instructional designer by trade we need to clarify what the enabling objectives actually are. For example, in my humble opinion learning to shave is required of anyone that says they know how to hone. I've only met one guy that said he could hone a straight razor but had no idea how to shave with one and ofcourse my concern is "How do you know its really going to produce a good shave?"

Now, what I do is often hone a razor until its sharp. Silly me, but thats the way I do it. Why, because I don't know any better. But, if you ask Lynn he often refers to learning how to hone each razor. That makes me think that he actually knows the specific honing strokes, grit, and pressure needed to hone, say a TI, vs a Dovo. That is kinda hard for me to even think about, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. That takes us back to my point about "when do you arrive" at learning how to hone.

And the reason it took me 4 years is because, besides being stupid, I kept realizing that I could get better, and better, and better, and really still haven't stopped learning. I thought I could hone a razor for a while and then found out I couldn't. Until I created a razor that cuts hairs, was smooth as silk, was easy to strop, and never nicked the user I realized that the level of really good honing is very far away from just "honing".

But, here is where I get a little annoyed. I hear lots of people say something like "It only takes an hour to learn, once I trusted a light touch, but it took me 5 months, 3 weeks, 6 days and 23 hours to get to the point where I knew when and how to do it, but it only takes an hour to learn to hone, of that I"m certain"

Knowing what I know now I take no issue with the 1961 barbers manual that says "it takes about 10 years to learn how to hone well".

But, you count up the hours for the newbies, include the time it takes them to learn to shave, and I'll buy whatever you come up with.

Its like so many things - easy to learn, a lifetime to master.

Anyone with basic motor skills, a hone and some patience will be able to get an edge from blunt to shave. The difference I guess comes with a better and better and more comfortable edge, and that is where the time comes from.

I guess that 4 years ago you got a blade that was blunt to a position where you could shave with it. Thats honed in my books. What we are talking about after that point is *mastering* the process.

Si

About 6 months. Then I progressed in small increments for 3 years, every so often, by reading and experiemnting. That took me from 95% up to 99% and sometimes 100% to my satisfaction. I still am learning by little bits. It has been a treck. There is no better accomplishment in honing than to get that BBS shave. Technique is still being worked on. Everyones hair groth is different and requires much study.

Monte

It takes an infinite amount of time if, like me, your standards increase faster than your skill. :(