Thread: When to stop on 1k stone

When the bevel is completely set, 1. The bevels are flat, 2. They are in one plane from heel to toe and from edge to the back of the bevel, and 3. The bevels are meeting fully from heel to toe.

There are many tests, that will tell you some of this, but few that will tell you if all the criteria are met. As Larson says you can with experience feel or see some tell tails like, watching water or feeling stickiness, but learning the test takes time and you really need a foolproof test. Hair test are hit and miss and will not tell you if the whole bevel is set, only parts that are tested.

TPT is pretty fool proof but takes a long time to learn, Looking at the bevel from the side and straight down on the edge are the only test that will tell you if all three factors are met.

Failure to fully set a bevel is probably 95 percent of most new honer’s problems and cause of most of the threads in the honing forum.

Here is a good thread, Second Attempt at Honing, where a new honer took a bunch of great micrographs of the whole process from beginning to end and of all the issues he had. And what a fully set bevel looks like.

Once fully set, just remove each previous stria from the bevel without messing up the edge. Each progression will make the edge straighter.

And here is

Toxic’s bevel set test video

.