Thread: Is honing really rocket science?

I don't consider honing to be rocket science, but a learned art that requires practice.
My grandfather taught me how to hone starting around age 7 with how to refresh a pocket knife. Later it was how to set/change the bevel on a knife. Then it was how to hone out a chipped edge. He taught me the techniques for doing the same with chisels, plane irons, carving knives, axes, and eventually how to do a razor.
As a teenager I used to think he would give me that stuff to do just to keep me busy and out of his way. Somewhere over the years I finally realized he was very lovingly trying to teach me an important skill. Although, I could have possibly done with a few less of "great job, now bread knife it and do it again."

I'd suggest getting a beater from whipped dog. It will be shave ready when it arrives so refresh it. Once you are sure you can refresh then reset the bevel. Keep practicing until you know the feel and sound of the steel on the stone.

not sure what makes something rocket science but for me honing takes a little bit of rocket science and a little bit of voodoo or mojo. doesn't help that i don't have a mentor but some blades hone with no problem and some i still can't get. it is a good feeling to be able to shave with a self honed blade though. just keep trying.(it's important to have a good stash of blades too, it increases your chance of success JMHO

I find honing to be just like shaving with a straight. The learning curve is similar and there are similarities on how you either get a good edge or a close comfortable shave. The biggest thing is spending time doing it. When I first started honing razors I had to forget everything thing I knew from honing knives and carpentry fodder. A smooth edge and a sharp edge are not one in the same, and like building a house or making a good lather you must have a solid foundation on which to create it. There is much wisdom to be gleaned from Lynn and Glen's YT videos and much more on this site, but the one thing that cannot be truly conveyed with out having direct experience is the touch it requires to obtain a smooth sharp shave ready edge. I must have honed 5-8 razors a week for 6 months trying different things and techniques in order to get an edge I was consistently happy with. I don't have a mentor locally and only had a razor from Lynn to use as a benchmark, I believe a local mentor would have accelerated my learning curve exponentially, but alas all I had was obsession for sharp things to help me. I think my perseverance and insatiable want for a perfect edge helped push me, and even now as good as I feel my honing is I know that I can do better. I still practice new things on my hand tools as well and I've been sharpening those with great success for 15+ years.

Originally Posted by jeffrx

Back in the old days, I assume guys had to sharpen their own razors. Was this the case?

No. The barber would hone them for a fee, or if you wanted a hone he could sell you one. There were also travelling tinkers that honed razors, scissors, etc.

My dad's family used straight razors into my lifetime, my great great uncle had a pair of dubl ducks that were thrown away when he died(grrr). He also had two strops, one clean and the other had a black paste on the leather. He also had a green painted board - green paint used to contain chrome oxide.

Originally Posted by mparker762

He also had a green painted board-green paint used to contain chrome oxide.

Some of it still does. Kremer pigments. I have a green painted board that I use at times

So, I got some Naniwa stones from SRD and bought a couple of Gold Dollars to practice on. I had to "hone the shit out of them" to get a good edge. However, after one not-so-great attempt, on the second try I got a really nice edge and the Gold Dollar gave me a better shave than my sight unseen razor. There is also a small sense of accomplishment in shaving with a razor that you worked on yourself. Watching various videos and seeing that there is really no one proper way to hone really helped.

No not rocket science at all. I think for someone new it can be confusing. There are so many threads, videos and blogs that involve sharpening(bevel setting), honing (refining an edge) and restoration, they all kind of get lumped together under honing in a beginners mind. If you have a shave ready razor with good geometry you will only need to hone it occasionally on very high grit stones. This is fairly straight forward and picked up pretty easily. In some ways it is easier to learn and gain the muscle memory for than good stropping habits.

When you get into bevel setting and restoration on razors that may have geometry issues, rust, hone wear, chipping etc. That is where greater experience and craft come into play, especially in evaluating how to best solve those issues

It has already been said but a lot of it does go back to upbringing. A lot of quality and skills have been lost down the years to convenience. Even my dad who is almost 70 didn't learn to hone or sharpen. My grandfather who is over 90 had whetstones but said he wasn't very good at using them. If your knife lost its edge you went to the hardware store. Neither of them did a lot of straight razor shaving. In WWII they were issued DE razors. Let's be real about it for the most part Late Gen X to Millennials are the first generation to do a lot of looking back to less efficient equipment and methods for things in order to get back some of the quality lost over years of sacrifice. Think about how crazy we sound to the average older men. We are willing to pay 50 to 100 bucks for a razor that has to be constantly maintained and occasionally sharpened, has a 6 month learning curve in practicality, and requires a longer more complex prep and ritual to do. Our reasons vary from it is a better shave, the blades when maintained last longer and in the long run cost less, to it is just something different that is an enjoyable process. Why hone or learn to maintain a blade when you can buy new ones for a dollar that will get the job done. It goes dull oh well pop in another. Scissors, kitchen knives, pocket knives, these all used to be maintained and treated with respect, but now eh it cost me 20 bucks and I got a couple of years of use out of it, toss it and get a new set.

When I was a kid all these knife sharpening tools were the rage. Why bother with those old hard to use stones just stick the blade in this slot and pull through. Maybe they bought a couple of extra years on some scissors but they weren't the same.

Really none of this is rocket science, straight razor shaving was figured out by people that had never used a computer, people could cook over a camp fire before matches were invented, Rather impressive blades were made by Neanderthals. Its just that we have lost a lot of those skills because the perception is they aren't needed anymore.