Thread: Honing Help

I've tried searching the forums, but looking up honing help, or honing guide turns up a lot of posts with suggestions for specific problems. I'm wondering if anyone has a link to a guide for honing. I've found information for stropping, so for now I"m ok there. However, if anyone has links to threads with a honing guide that would be much appreciated.

My initial set up will be a norton 4k/8k and a four sided paddle from tony (all pasted).


Thanks in advance,

John

*EDIT* I've found the newbies guide and it has a bunch of links. Sorry for the bother.

well what I can say is that skype has helped me alot, some of the senior members have helped me a great deal and if you have a webcam and a mic then this is great.

I was helped by randydance,as your probably in the USA then this makes the time difference less of an issue, he ,with the use of skype and a webcam supervised my actions and told me alot of great tips and walked me through the basics and other bits and bobs.

I hope this info will help you out as honing guides are great bu if your like me its easier to have spoken help.

Good luck and I hope you get the help your after.

regards,simon

ps I would love to help you but im more into taking sharp razors and messing them up with my norton 4k/8k, thats not exactly right but if you have the gear for skype then contact me and we can set it up.

That actually might be really helfpul. I don't have a webcam right now, but even just being able to get instant feedback might be helpful for starting up.

My new video will be able to help you. It will be out in the very near future. If you would like, you can call me some evening and I can try to answer your questions and explain the process for you. Send me a PM if you want my number.

Lynn

Lynn,

Thanks for the offer. We actually spoke over email. Once I get my equipment I hope your offer will still be open and I'll gladly take you up on it. I've seen one of your videos already and it was a great help even before starting. I look forward to the next one.

Talk to you soon,

John

One more question.

Once my Norton 4k/8k arrives, is there anything I need to do to prepare it to hone a razor. I've read that there can be problems with hones that need to be corrected before honing. What corrective measures should I take.

Thanks,

John

Get a glass plate and cover it with a 600grit wet/dry sand-paper. Draw a bunch of parallel lines over the hone with a pencil (both sides). Get the paper wet and sand until the lines are gone. Also round off the corners on the hone. (maybe you should do this first) That should get it nice and flat.

How perfect do the lines have to be parallel wise? Also why a glass plate as opposed to a sanding block. I'm not sure I have a glass plate (unless you just mean a plate as in the kitchen item) but I can buy a sanding block.

Thanks,

John

The lines are there to tell you when the hone is flat. Their purpose is to dissapear, so don't worry too much about them. The glass/marble/counter top is there to give you already flat surface to start with. You can also bypass all of this and use pumice stone with circular motion under running water on the hone. It will make it's surface nice and smooth... Since your hone is brand new, you don't have to worry about it's flatening it.

Nenad

What matters about the lines is that you've got them reasonably dense on the stone -- when they're all sanded away then you know you've got the hone reasonably flat (you might want to give the hone another few laps because once the hone gets nearly flat the sandpaper will suck off the plate onto the hone and sand off the pencil marks without quite getting the hone flat.

The plate is used because glass is very very flat, and can be gotten in thick enough plates to be very stiff, and in big enough plates to cover the entire hone plus some sanding room as well. A sanding block isn't big enough, nor flat enough, nor stiff enough for the job.