Thread: Hone Format for Knives Scaled to Razors

I've recently been watching a video where a guy is re-establishing the edge of an approximate 8" knife blade length on an 8" x 3" synthetic water hone. This has me wondering if hones for razors might be scaled accordingly. So I grab a nearby 5/8 full-hollow ebay straight razor junker. Blade length there is around 3". This leads me to conclude that if an 8" x 3" honing surface suffices for an 8" knife, then perhaps a 4" x 1-1/2" honing surface would be more than enough for the razor, which is essentially a folding pocket knife in this regard. Does this seem reasonable?

It sounds very reasonable. Bigger is nice and luxurious but around a 4"x2" hone would be plenty big enough for comfortable honing.

Thanks for the confirmation. I think 1-1/2" wide or narrower might even be better, just so long as the blade keeps skating across the pond from left to right (or right to left, given left-hand dominance) without digging in. Maybe less middle wear that way as well with the narrower stone, so as to avoid frown?

Originally Posted by Brontosaurus

Maybe less middle wear that way as well with the narrower stone, so as to avoid frown?

I'm still getting into this side of things and only have a finishing stone to refresh the edges of my razors so I am sorry if this is a stupid question.

Does this mean that if I have a 3" stone for my 3" razors, there is a possibility that I might wear the middle out more quickly that the edges? Should I perform x strokes on the stone to avoid this?

It's nicer to have big stones. But smaller ones can be used with no problems. When I was a kid all we had to sharpen knives were a 6×2 double sided oilstone and an 4×2 Arkansas worked just fine.

And when I got into straight razors I used 6×1 stones from the apex knife sharpening jig. finished on a 5×1 coticule. So it's doable.

It's be case 10" wide Jnats, Eschers and the like would be too expensive for honing knives. Tc

Originally Posted by Porl

I'm still getting into this side of things and only have a finishing stone to refresh the edges of my razors so I am sorry if this is a stupid question.

Does this mean that if I have a 3" stone for my 3" razors, there is a possibility that I might wear the middle out more quickly that the edges? Should I perform x strokes on the stone to avoid this?

By 3" stone, I assume you mean 3" wide, not 3" long. With 3" wide, you have the option to move up and down more than from side to side, so the wear is not the same as with a laterally-biassed X-stroke.

This is just my take on it, but with a relatively short stone, more side-to-side movement is involved. In this way, the heel sees little contact with the stone relative to the middle of the blade and the toe. So to make up for it, some up-and-down movement needs to be made, addressing the heel. This shouldn't be an issue with a relatively wide stone as the middle and toe have been seeing equal wear given equal pressure being applied. With narrower stones, say in the 1" to 1-1/2" width range, this also is not as much of an issue as the blade's contact is lessened in relation to the blade's length with each pass. Again, it's a matter of the heel receiving some extra attention in both cases. However, with a stone in the 2" width range, there both the heel and toe are not in constant contact in making the side-to-side pass, whereas the middle of the blade is. So both the heel and the toe need to be accounted for in this way.

Some would say that the width of the stone doesn't matter. I would agree with this so far as I would be consistently using a rolling X-stroke. But here again, the use of a narrower stone would not require the need for a rolling X-stroke (although it could be used there).

Actually, I'm sorry to confuse things by bringing that question up. My object here is to arrive at an idealized razor honing format based on the knife-sharpening example. Scaled accordingly, a 3"-wide stone used with an 8" knife would equate to a 1-1/8"-wide stone for razors. One problem here could be stability of such a stone in the palm, especially if it were thick, as it might have a tendency to rock. As for the length, an 8" length stone for an 8" knive would equate to a 3" length stone for a 3"-long razor blade. But then there is the ~5/8" shoulder-to-edge involved as well, bringing the stone length up to around 4".

Of course, one should be willing to adapt to stone formats as given. So someone sharpening a 6" knife or a 10" knife would still get by very easily with an 8" x 3" stone in this example, and the same would hold true with razors. It's just that when I see a guy using an 8" knife with an 8" x 3" stone that I note that the same stone would be preponderantly large if used with razors, which are much smaller in comparison.

Originally Posted by Brontosaurus

My object here is to arrive at an idealized razor honing format based on the knife-sharpening example.

The problem I see here is that arguably a Sheepsfoot shape is similar to that of a razor and I will say I have seen some razors that look like they have a trailing point or a Hawkbill design. So why would your want to base your razor sharpening on a knife technique?

Originally Posted by 32t

The problem I see here is that arguably a Sheepsfoot shape is similar to that of a razor and I will say I have seen some razors that look like they have a trailing point or a Hawkbill design. So why would your want to base your razor sharpening on a knife technique?

I don't really understand the connection to a Sheepsfoot shape or a Hawkbill design. I'm not so much looking to follow a knife-sharping technique, just noting the knife scale relationship to the stone as compared to razors.

Originally Posted by Brontosaurus

I don't really understand the connection to a Sheepsfoot shape or a Hawkbill design. I'm not so much looking to follow a knife-sharping technique, just noting the knife scale relationship to the stone as compared to razors.

You say this, "My object here is to arrive at an idealized razor honing format based on the knife-sharpening example."

My point is that most knifes are not shaped like razors. Why would you want to base an "idealized" format based on a different design?