Circles.

During a Facetime honing video chat with my young apprentice last night he asked why 40 circles when we discussed the number of circles down the hone. This got me thinking, why 40 and not 35 or 45 or whatever number. IMO, Lynn Abrams’ 2009 Convention video, which I’ve seen at least 100 times (I’m not exaggerating) sets the standard in technique and approach, but again, why 40 circles? I’m not a stroke or circle counter, actually very far from it, I hone by cadence, feel, sound and a bit visually too, watching the undercut. I went back and watched this video and others again, counted circles and found that sometimes he does 38, others 43. I think it’s simply that Lynn’s cadence is 40 circles and his now benchmark cadence gets the edge to maximum refinement at any given point in a progression enabling him and any user to refine further moving forward.

Do I use 40 approximate circles? No I do not, I use closer to 60 more or less. In addition to the obvious factors (I only have three fingers on my right hand) I believe that 60 +/- circles is my cadence. This theory gets thrown out the window when honing Kamisori but that’s another story.

I'm guessing it was arrived at empirically. Hone 50,000 and you start to notice a few things.

I do a tad bigger circles, so I'm at about 30+ down the hone.
It works out pretty consistently, so as you, I go mostly by feel when going up and down the hones.

When I do circles I do not count how many circles I have done but how long I have been doing them. About 25 seconds gives me about 40 circles.

My take on it is 40 is about right to get good abrasion on the bevels once you do one set up and down the hone.
I personally do not count, but for me it is very typical to go ~20 circles up and down then 10 x strokes then check the bevel. I am pretty sure my counts are fairly accurate as I used to count when I was learning honing and muscle memory is related to habit and repetition.