Thread: Honing with one hand or two hands

'At this point in time' 'Lil Shaver, you are using two hands but one of them is not actually honing. The second hand is there ,but at this point in time, it is not there so there are never two hands, except when there are. To prove this to the feeble minded, remove the hand holding the razor, and just try using the hand that is not being used....so simply put, let the hone tell you what to do, lose yourself and you will find a man in a mirror singing, Look Sharp.....

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is that one of the advantages of one-handed honing is that it leaves the other hand free for other things.

For example, the other day I honed a crusty old wedge one-handed, leaving me free to have a beer with the other. After being very frustrated for the first beer I suddenly found my honing improved enormously. After the second beer it was going fantastically well and continued to be awesome right up to the 4th beer, at which time I felt the edge would shave like a laser strapped to a shark's forehead.

Funny thing was the next day during the test shave the razor was rubbish. Dunno what happened there, but that was definitely one of the best one-handed honing sessions I've ever had.

James.

I only use 2 hands when I strop.

I do my best hone work when I have a glass of Bourbon to sip. Naturally I need the other hand so one handed honing is my normal. I do like two on the 1k and 4k for bevels. After that I fly like a butterfly and I cant do it with two hands on the blade

Originally Posted by Jimbo

For example, the other day I honed a crusty old wedge one-handed, leaving me free to have a beer with the other.

Dunno if it is true, but I hear coticules work good with beer slurry ....... but it has to be Belgian beer

I am pretty sure I seen a drink hidden in one of Glens videos so it must be part of the process

Originally Posted by cubancigar2000

I am pretty sure I seen a drink hidden in one of Glens videos so it must be part of the process

Maybe that's the part that I was missing!

When i started to hone i used two hand, actually one hand(better..in this way i can accomodate the blade)

I started out using two hands with a coticule stationary on the table. I lost a lot of slurry and felt a bit restricted in my motions. I switched to one hand, which did take some getting used to, but I liked how it worked much better. I felt like I had more freedom of motion with certain strokes to focus on very specific parts of blades, noticed the feedback in the hone/holding hand (to get a better sense of the contact between the hone and razor), lost less slurry and last but definitely not least I felt like my stroke technique got more and more refined.

Do note that my coticules have never been very large, the largest I have used comfortably in hand was a 20x5cm, the smallest 1.5x9cm.

EDIT: I hold the hone in hand as well.

Originally Posted by TrilliumLT

I think they use two hands for stability, and may feel more natural. I started honing and i used both hands but as i started feeling more assured in my abilities i went to one.

This was the case with me as well.
The second hand added needed stability before I got the feel for one handed honing up to a usable level.
Nowadays it feels better with just one hand, rolling and working separate parts of the edge at the time.