Thread: My honing 101 home schooling course

I am self teaching honing on my Norton water stones set using a Gold Dollar.

I attempted a pyramid method starting at 50 using my 4000 and 8000 stones with no noticeable effect.

I'm going to start again going from 1000 to 4000 starting at 20; then from 4000 to 8000 using the pyramid method starting at 20.
We'll see what happens...

http://straightrazorpalace.com/honin...on-2012-a.html


GDGD's are notoriously "Off" but that thread should help with using the Nortons

Howdy Howdydave!

(sorry, I just had to do it)

Magnification and a Sharpie will be your friend on this endeavor. Both will allow you to get feedback on what you are doing. Mark the edge with a Sharpie, let it dry a few minutes, and then do just one stroke on each side of the blade on a relatively dry hone, or at least one not loaded with a lot of slurry. This will at least let you know if you are making contact with the hone along the entire length of the blade.

So, before you get all up in the Kool-Aid… Do yourself a favor, put some ink on the bevel and see, if you get an even bevel, (the whole edge and spine, rest on the stone).

If you don’t, which is normal, do a Google search and figure out why, and how to get the razor flat on the hone. There are a ton of threads and videos on honing the GD.

As you probably know, you have made your process of learning to hone, exponentially harder, because you most probably, will not know if any problems you encounter are, you or the razor…

Hopefully you will get lucky. Have fun.

Ditto what the others have said. I'm not a fan of the pyramid methods, since they rely on lap counts and not feedback or actual progress based on observation. Having said that, the pyramid can not work until the bevel is fully set first.

I'm pretty sure that my blade is a bit of a corkscrew, but my primary concern at this point is light, even pressure, a steady stroke, and consistency.

As with the martial arts: First, master your FORM.

I have a clear view of the abrasion from the stone and it is definitely NOT parallel with the edge!
Don't even need a Sharpie for this.

I have a fairly straight "grind line" BUT...
It is about 1/8" wide at the toe and about 1/4" wide at the heel.

Doesn't look like I'm anywhere near the edge or near forming a bevel yet.


But THAT'S OK...
I need the practice to perfect my strokes -- if I didn't, I would go to my 220 stone.

I may switch to circular strokes for a while...
No matter which way I do it, I don't have to remember where I was in my pyramid sequence!

This is what can happen with the gold dollars. Their grind can be off and the heel end of the blade can be significantly thicker than the rest of the blade. The bevels are planes defined by the lines formed by the spine and the edge and everything above that plane has to be honed away until the two planes intersect at the edge. The thicker heel means more steel is above those planes so more steel needs to be removed from a wider area.

On the bright side, it's only a gold dollar so little harm done if you screw it up worse than it was before you touched it.

I bought it in the first place because I wanted to make all of my initial mistakes on a cheapie.
Never even thought of the possibility that a cheapie would teach me the finer points of honing.

Well ground blades are relatively easy to hone. It's a much greater challenge to be able to hone the crappy stuff, either from original manufacture or from previous bad honing.