Thread: over honing

What are the indicators of over honing?

not 100% but I think thin edges that chip easily giving a harsh feel to them is a indicator

Thank you, Substance.

Overhoning is when you over sharpe rhe edge and get wire edge . An old barber told me how to get rid of this When you have razor like this Push the blade in his entire lenght throw the finger nail or throw a soft wood . Have to be gentle not to kill the edge totaly .
Then put the rasor again on the finishing stone , for a retouch.
This hapens when people use stroping type stroke on a hone , witch gives momentary sharpness . but this feeling is false .
It hapened to me 2 times with a 6/8 razors that has a spine wear and the bevell angle is small for a stable edge . I put some layers of tape on the spine , and i increace the angle / or i think so / Like that i get more stable edge om the full hollow razors
I never had this problem on a 1/2 or 1/4 hollow blades .

Overhoning in the old school sense, as well as I can tell, is working the edge with a less than superfine abrasive (like a barber hone) all the way to the edge. You get a harsh shave because of a rough edge.

It's used around here also when too much pressure is applied during the bevel set and the geometry of the edge bevel is changed, making it thinner and weak.

The two uses of the word are not similar, especially since a lot of the modern abrasives are so fine that the first definitely really never occurs (until you go back and ignore the directions on an old barber hone).

I'd imagine in the old days, barbers protected the edge of their razor and allowed the strop to condition it and didn't want the hone doing anything other than keeping the geometry just behind the very edge in good shape so that the edge didn't get too much thickness.

Thank you both (RusenBG & DaveW) for the imput. Learner is learning more all the time.

Once you are satisfied that you have a set bevel on your razor, my advice through making the same mistake myself is too much pressure is akin to over honing. Lynn Abrams in one of his videos coined the phrase , 'Pressure will kill your edge'. I agree fully with that. Avoid too much pressure for certain. Cheers Bob.

There is one last thing that wasn't covered on overhoning. IMO, overhoning is when you hone too much on the finer "grits" (over 8K) to where the edge is fragile. Then when you start your shave the edge falls apart, chipping and such on the first pass or two to where you cannot finish the shave due to the edge being so chippy. It happened to me a bit when "chasing the edge", meaning honing a razor to it's maximum potential before it fails. Every razor has a tipping point. Natural finishing stones are less prone to overhoning & synthetics are more prone to it IME.

Yep, differs from "excessive" or "brutal" honing, which happen when you work to much on very abrasive low grit stones without protecting the back, and results in a ground/flat back, degrading the blade and effectively reducing the honing angle.

bobski, shooter74743 & Aggelos: thanks for the help. I think learning when the bevel is actually & properly set is critical in the learning curve. I'm certainly guilty of the too
much pressure thing but help from forum contributors & Lynn Abrams videos are killing that fault. Shooter 74743: I'll try to notice the natural stone verses synthetics. I
have a Hiram Smith black hard Arkansas which they think is 12,000 plus a 12,000 Naniwa Super Stone. Aggelos: I just got (yesterday) a J.A. Henckles stainless 7/8, a
monster blade for a new guy, I will double tape it so the bevel angle is not way too narrow. So far my old Robeson 5/8 Sure Edge is my favorite. Thanks for the help one
and all.