Thread: been honing with Norton in hand

Interesting! I saw a couple of videos of people holding the stone in hand and i aways thought they were showing off or perhaps it was for video purposes! I am def going to try it!

Originally Posted by robert2286

Interesting! I saw a couple of videos of people holding the stone in hand and i aways thought they were showing off or perhaps it was for video purposes! I am def going to try it!

I felt the same way the first time I saw a video of Mastro Livi honing with the stones in hand. He was taking his different stones out of his water buckets, holding in his left hand and doing 10 or 20 laps on it and moving onto the next stone in the progression.

At the time I sort of watched and thought to myself

"wow! It would be nice to be that skilled at honing some day"

At the time I was watching Lynn Abrams' videos on honing, and he sits at a table with the stone on a stand, I figured that was the easiest way to learn to hone, but to my astonishment, when I decided to try holding the stone in hand, the act of honing became much more natural and my blade just sort of glided over the stone like it never had before.

It was definitely a turning point for me with regards to honing, I set my first bevel with my stone in hand, and polished my first edge to the best of my current abilities with my stone in hand. I can't wait to continue the journey and get better and better at it as time goes on.

While I am still very new to honing, I find hand holding the stones, regardless of size, far more comfortable and I think it makes my touch more consistent. If feedback through one hand is a good thing, then two hands should be twice as good. True or not, it feels like I have tactical feedback on pressure and keeping the spine flat, that I don't get when the stones are on the stand.

That said, an 8x3 Zulu Grey is pretty heavy!!

Originally Posted by MikekiM

While I am still very new to honing, I find hand holding the stones, regardless of size, far more comfortable and I think it makes my touch more consistent. If feedback through one hand is a good thing, then two hands should be twice as good. True or not, it feels like I have tactical feedback on pressure and keeping the spine flat, that I don't get when the stones are on the stand.

That said, an 8x3 Zulu Grey is pretty heavy!!

very true about the tractile feedback in both hands, i couldn't agree more, and the stones definitely get heavy after a while hah

Ok... So i tried it and i have to say... I was nervous... So i waited to do it with my 8,000 grit and then 12000 Chinese stone since they are more forgiving! And i have to say... I do like it! Stone in hand its pretty awesome! I dont know if i would set bevels with the stone on hand method but i do use this method for the rest of the honing process...

Agreed, I was also very nervous at first...but it quickly felt more and more natural...I have tried setting a bevel on a 1k and 4k with the stone in hand and it was "do-able" but I do prefer to put the stone in the stand for that part.

The rest of the honing process goes like butter though with the stone in hand...

Glad you gave it a try and found it to work! New things are always nerve racking, but fun!

Here's how I hone in hand.

I missed this thread when it started.
I always hand hold my stones, have been doing it that way for a couple of years.
I use the Naniwa superstones with the bases along with Nortons, Chosera, and various naturals.
They all work fine.

Originally Posted by Badgister

Here's how I hone in hand.

The person in the video (is it you, Badgister?) is very quick! A very nice video though. I wish there was some way to download it and save it to disk. Thanks for sharing this.

Originally Posted by bruseth

The person in the video (is it you, Badgister?) is very quick! A very nice video though. I wish there was some way to download it and save it to disk. Thanks for sharing this.

you could use something like this....
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...ownloadhelper/