Thread: Honing "Feel"

If we are taking a vote on the science I am in your camp. With the addition of water and pressure on the blade the physical characteristics are more akin to suction then particle attraction.

F=AP which is derived from the definition of pressure which is P=FA

where as a Force is created that increases the Pressure in an Area greater than the pressure outside of that Area. With a reduction of Force a vacuum is created when the atmospheric pressure is not reduced equivalent to the -F

Somewhat like a glass of cold water sticking to a table. Except with in that case the water creates a seal around air which is cooled causing it's atmospheric pressure to drop below that of the air surrounding the glass. Vacuum or low pressure.

In the case of the razor and hone, the honing pressure on the blade creates a drop in pressure below it. That area's low pressure = suck.

And ScoutHikerDad Theoretically, in QCD (quantum chromodynamics) vacuum multiple vacuum states can coexist. Where as the blade has a vacuum the sucks yours is just a matter of needing more practice :<0)

Originally Posted by razornut

Actually. I think it's more likely air pressure. When the edge is so smooth. That air can't leak past and the surface tension of the water seals the ends then a slight vacum is created. When that happens atmospheric pressure literally pushes the blade onto the stone.

Thanks for making me feel dumb on multiple levels, Pups.

Edit: FWIW, I got in plenty of practice over the weekend with 4 problem blades. I was up at Kevn/Hidestoart's house, and tweaked those blades out to the max on synthetics up through the Norton 8k, then a natural progression from coticule to escher, followed by lots of stropping on all his wonderful handmade strops. I brought those edges home, tested 'em out, and they're the best, smoothest I've ever shaved with. It was really my first good session with naturals, and I have to say I like those edges even better than the ones I finished on a Nani12/Gokumyo 20k progression at the Asheville meetup! Maybe there's hope for me yet.

See now, I was joking around but you out and out lied :<0)

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

Thanks for making me feel dumb on multiple levels, Pups.

Edit: FWIW, I got in plenty of practice over the weekend with 4 problem blades. I was up at Kevn/Hidestoart's house, and tweaked those blades out to the max on synthetics up through the Norton 8k, then a natural progression from coticule to escher, followed by lots of stropping on all his wonderful handmade strops. I brought those edges home, tested 'em out, and they're the best, smoothest I've ever shaved with. It was really my first good session with naturals, and I have to say I like those edges even better than the ones I finished on a Nani12/Gokumyo 20k progression at the Asheville meetup! Maybe there's hope for me yet.

FWIW I bet your not so dumb either....

I'll chime in with my take on it - coefficient of friction.

As the surface of the bevel smooths out the coefficient of friction increases because there is more metal touching the hone than there would be with a rough edge.

This is analogous to steet tires with tread and track tires with no tread.

-john

Originally Posted by ocelot27

I'll chime in with my take on it - coefficient of friction.

As the surface of the bevel smooths out the coefficient of friction increases because there is more metal touching the hone than there would be with a rough edge.

This is analogous to steet tires with tread and track tires with no tread.

-john

Good theory but not applicable to the situation. Case in point. The same thing happens when lapping a stone. However with the weight ratios you can actually turn things upside down and they still stick together. Your car would fall on it's hood. It's all in the water.

When you can hone past all the electrons & get the nuclei in contact then you have close contact between stone & blade.

Suction goood Ug....

If I might add
Strictly. Speaking. In nature there is no such thing as suction or pull other than the electro magnetic force. Air pushes and. Tries to get to an area of lower pressure, taking with it any thing that gets in the way. Be it a razor or a rug when hoovering. An old physics teacher said to me "a horse doesn't pull a cart. It pushes the harness around its neck. For some weird reason that ' STUCK' lol

Thanks to all especially for the science lessons. Seriously, many thanks for all your contributions it's reassured me that my honing is moving in the right direction. The point about the scratchy feel moving to smooth also makes sense. I've checked an old razor I honed some time ago and compared it with my recent efforts with a loupe. Now I can not only see the difference, there being far less scratches, but also feel the difference, particularly on the higher grit hones. I'm finishing on a SG 16k but have also done a couple after that on a ZG, not sure yet if that's the way to go or just move from the SS 12k to either the SS or the ZG and not both. So the experimentation continues!
Again, thanks to all.

All right people, thanks to all of your wonderful contributions, and for the sake of correct scientific behaviour, which means reviewing your hypothesis, let me propose another, probably more consensual explanation.

Let's keep it short, wetting (warning, advanced science happens on this wikipedia page) seems to be a very strong candidate for a correct answer.

To the point :
- the flatter a surface, the harder water adheres
- the flatter/thinner a water drop, the stronger it sticks

Conclusion :
if you have a very smooth and flat surface (high grit whetstone) and your blade is sufficiently flat and smooth, then they French kiss and get stuck because of the saliva

Conclusion in simple terms :
Succion good, because very flat and smooth everywhere, water happy

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My initial hypothesis was that two sufficiently flat surfaces, such as calibrating tiles in metrology, adhere to each other thanks to Van der Waals forces.

Such an adhesion can only be broken by sliding the tiles, much like on very high grit stone the smaller stone is sometimes "stuck" to the larger one and can only be removed by sliding.

That would stand true, and may be an underlying cause for wetting (not a specialist actually), but actually if that really was the case, you would feel succion even on a dry stone, which is not the case : water is an essential element.

I pondered also on the venturi effect (the actual name of the phenomenon 10pup refered as succion), but this effect is strongly affected by speed, which in my experience does not have any effect on how much the stone sucks the blade.

The actual mechanism may be far more complicated and may include also things like surface tension
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