Thread: Heal leading vs 90 degree strokes...

+ 1 on heel leading.

When going at a 90 degrees angle it takes a very small mistake to lift the spine and ruin the edge, when going heel first not so.
Even if the stone would "grab" the steel it won't lift easily.

While I tend to use a heel forward motion... I question which method is less likely to abuse a blade. Aside from spine wear, the most abnormal wear on an old razor, I see, is a narrowing towards the toe. Is this only caused by uneven pressure or by the angle at which you hone at over time??

Originally Posted by Johnus

While I tend to use a heel forward motion... I question which method is less likely to abuse a blade. Aside from spine wear, the most abnormal wear on an old razor, I see, is a narrowing towards the toe. Is this only caused by uneven pressure or by the angle at which you hone at over time??

I suspect that the abnormal wear we see at the point/toe is from excess pressure caused by frustration at getting the end as keen as the center, but that is just a guess. My father taught me to sharpen pocket knives with a heel leading stroke when I was a teenager. I've been using heel leading ever since and it was natural for me to fall into that with straights when I began that journey.

At least one honemeister I know uses a 90 degree X stroke and I've played around with that too. He uses a very quick stroke while mine tends to be sort of slower. Just what I'm comfortable with. His stuff came out quite sharp/smooth. In spite of the 90 degree attitude his scratch patterns were angled, due I guess, to the X stroke.

I like the heel leading as well as it also feels like a more natural stroke for me. I use it for circles as well as X strokes. Another great reason for it is that it helps prevent sharpening into the shoulder or heel of the razor. This works really well in most cases except where someone actually uses the very heel of the razor for sculpting in their normal shaving routing. In those cases, the 90 degrees does work well although when you know that the heel is used, you can make sure you start with the heel using the heel leading stroke too.

Have fun.

One thing I noticed on one of my Dovos is that they must have used a heel-leading stroke to hone it at the factory - the wear pattern on the spine and the sharpness of the edge all the way to the heel point to a heal-leading stroke... I too find it easier to hone this way and I've only been at it a short time...