Back honing

[Steel]

Is there any down sides to back honing a few times on a higher gritstone? Any advantages to it? People will back hone (sorta) on pasted strops or balsa. Why not on a higher grit stone. Wouldn't it help "shape and mould" the edge better.

Obviously lay I need help. Lol.

[Geezer]

I do not know of any advantage to back honing. I do know that some persons were taught to hone that way.

For some stones, back honing is a way to cause a wire edge in a hurry.

Use of a pasted strop of whatever material almost requires back honing / spine leading strokes to prevent damage to the edge or strop or both.

All that said, I do think there are times that persons honing will use a back stroke, or circles, or ellipses, to achieve a certain effect on the edge of a razor. Also, they probably know in advance what they are trying to accomplish and how to do it.
Just my take on the subject.
~Richard

[JazzWillie]

I'm not a pro at honing what so ever, but my brother-in-law is a metallurgist at Northern Illinois University and I've posed a few questions to him that pertain to honing and steel make up. One of our conversations had to do with something of this nature. He said basically if you are drawing an abrasive plane across a piece of metal that the bur will always form if two planes of surface form a point and the abrasion is being pulled away from the point (in a back hone stroke). What he said is happening is the material from the thicker side of the plane is sliding across the stone toward the thinner point and forcing it upward. When you give it a traditional honing stroke you force it back onto it self and actually make more work for yourself. What would happen is if you kept the blade on the same side or flipped it you would be leaving bigger pieces of metal on the stone that could damage the blade and the nature of cutting the bur off can serrate the edge ever so slightly. Kind of like when you bend a piece of sheet metal repeatedly and it snaps. It never breaks off smoothly, its always jagged. Then he said that if the stone were course enough that you might not even know it happened but on a high grit stone you might be scoring it, because the high grit stone particles are so much smaller than lower grit stones they wont take the bur off as quickly, and these score lines would result in raised areas in the blade which would cause further damage to the stone. One thing he said is this is all relative to the type and hardness of the metal.

[Geezer]

JazzWillie, That is the best definition of wire edge forming and destruction that I have seen! Thank you! That also explains some of the micro-chipping when using circles on some man made stones.
~Richard

[Steel]

I'm not a pro at honing what so ever, but my brother-in-law is a metallurgist at Northern Illinois University and I've posed a few questions to him that pertain to honing and steel make up. One of our conversations had to do with something of this nature. He said basically if you are drawing an abrasive plane across a piece of metal that the bur will always form if two planes of surface form a point and the abrasion is being pulled away from the point (in a back hone stroke). What he said is happening is the material from the thicker side of the plane is sliding across the stone toward the thinner point and forcing it upward. When you give it a traditional honing stroke you force it back onto it self and actually make more work for yourself. What would happen is if you kept the blade on the same side or flipped it you would be leaving bigger pieces of metal on the stone that could damage the blade and the nature of cutting the bur off can serrate the edge ever so slightly. Kind of like when you bend a piece of sheet metal repeatedly and it snaps. It never breaks off smoothly, its always jagged. Then he said that if the stone were course enough that you might not even know it happened but on a high grit stone you might be scoring it, because the high grit stone particles are so much smaller than lower grit stones they wont take the bur off as quickly, and these score lines would result in raised areas in the blade which would cause further damage to the stone. One thing he said is this is all relative to the type and hardness of the metal.

Thanks for such a descriptive and technical answer. So ...... Back honing can form a wire edge? Is this what we are doing with pastes then? I'm a little confused. Lynn says that over honing can create a wire edge and back honing can correct this.

So in the end...never back hone unless you already have a wire edge? Stay forward honing on stones to counter the damage or rounding or wire edge that pastes create?

[wynndow]

When you back hone to get rid of the wire edge, you have to drop down a grit size. Which I would imagine that pulls the edge off then you have to smooth it back out using a higher grit. It's a little different.

[Steel]

When you back hone to get rid of the wire edge, you have to drop down a grit size. Which I would imagine that pulls the edge off then you have to smooth it back out using a higher grit. It's a little different.

Do if you get a wire edge back honing with pastes then dripping down to a finishing hone and back honing on that will get rid of it? Correct? Or am I missing something as usual? Lol