Quote Originally Posted by scarface View Post
Jimbo-

Okay, I'm trying to imagine this, but it seems to me with a lapped hone and a straight blade, with the rocking motion that you described, that when you start with the toe high, the heel of the edge would start on the right edge of the hone, and as the blade is rotated through flat (where, on the flat hone, the entire edge would contact the surface of the hone), until you end up with just the toe contacting the right edge of the hone.

I guess the point I'm trying to make (and I may not be visualizing this correctly) is that it would be impossible for the point of contact to move smoothly from heel to toe on a flat hone.......wouldn't it? It seems that it would be heel, then the entire edge, and finally the toe.

-whatever

-Lou

Lou,

Sort of... I don't think I described it well. If you look at the motion from above, it looks like an X pattern. If you look at it from the side (the narrow side of the hone) you're making a very flat "U" motion, or maybe even a "ski jump". The spine and edge are simulatneously in contact with the hone, but not along the entire length of the blade where it contacts with the hone.

Given the shallowness of the U motion, you're right - in practice it's not a single point of contact, more a region of contact. And I guess you'd call it more a tranference of weight visualisation technique...

Anyway, it works for me, but I am strange Caveat Emptor, YMMV, take with a grain of salt, etc.

James.