Thread: Not Another Honing Post!!

You can get an edge really sharp just going down the hone, but its not the best method. Lap the hone very often if your going to try that. Using an x pattern is a little better.

First, your not restriating an edge or anything like that when you strop, all your doing is aligning the edge with outward motion and smoothing out the bevel sides for a smoother stroke along the skin. So drop out of your worries about stropping.

A few key points:

These are all just opinion ok, I don't give a cr+p anymore if anyone buys into this stuff.

You must be reducing pressure until you get to only the weight of the blade

You must "finish" off the teeth and smooth the edge completely. This might take a while. This is probably the problem most of the time people hone.

You must use equal pressure on every stroke when applying any pressure at all. When you use the weight of the blade its equal on both sides, obviously.

You must use the same angle consistently

You must move the razor the same amount of travel distance on the hone when honing each side

You must keep the razor flat

You must stroke the edge carefully to smooth out a perfect bevel (once its achieved). No dropping the razors edge, no bouncing, no mistakes.

Think about the edge of the razor a little bit. Imagine a fragile edge that you want to run down a gritted ROCK. Don't you think an edge is honed very differently when you use an x pattern than if you just pushed a razor straight down the hone? Imagine that it is really, really important to abrade the soft metal edge into itself so it isn't all crumbled up in the process by the rocks grit. Imagine that you are sharpening the very center of the edge and that the area just above that spot needs to support the center of the edge as you abrade the edge into the grit or it'll just break off.

Now, can you see how moving the edge straight across the hone even if you angle it does not produce as much support against the edge as moving the edge in an x pattern nearly straight down? Try it both ways, can you put the scales on the hone and pull it sideways or is it more effective to pull the razor straight down by pulling it off the hone downward.

When I hone I angle the razor and use an x pattern so I can achieve the thinnest possible edge on the planet. Whatcha think of that?