Thread: Hone x stroke?

I should add an obvious follow up to my above post. Where the blade is making contact with the hone, the wave is being pushed by the blade. Later, when and where the blade is making BETTER contact with the blade because the bevel has been smoothed out more and the very apex of the bevel (aka the EDGE) is making contact with the hone, then the water is no longer pushed by the blade but it instead is flowing up onto the belly of the blade. This is a sign of much better contact between the blade and the hone. You need to continue the honing on that particular level of hone until that flow occurs uniformly along the entire length of the blade on both sides of the blade. Only when you have achieved this point should you consider moving on to the next higher grit of hone.

On some hones, when you reach this point you will feel the edge begin to stick to the hone. This also is a sign that you have reached the peak of what you can get from that grit.

You are confusing the razor being over the stone with being in contact.

The purpose of the X stroke is to shift the point of contact evenly from the heel to the toe, particularly for razors that are not perfectly straight.

As Glenn said the water will show you where you are making contact.

Very few razors are perfectly straight and flat, but it is usually not an issue, except in rare cases.

Think of honing a curved knife, if you went straight back and forth a large portion of the blade would not touch the stone, but if you used a slight X stroke you would slightly shift the pressure so the whole blade was in contact at one point from heel to toe.

Most folk in videos use an exaggerated X stroke from corner to corner, in that case the heel comes off the stone in the first inch of travel.

The stroke should be much less exaggerated so the heel stay on the stone at least half way and the toe ends up in the middle of the stone at the other end, a very shallow stroke.

Or with the heel forward and the toe in the upper corner, the heel ends up still on the stone at the lower corner, this is enough to shift the pressure and make contact from heel to toe.

Good question.