Thread: Honing tip: If the razor's a-hoppin...

...don't keep a-soppin'-


I have been trying to learn to hone my Dovo Bismarck for about a year now and finally had a small revelation. Sometimes I have noticed that I just couldn't get the blade to make a smooth lap up and down the hone. It would stick, it would hop, it just wasn't working. I figured it was just bad technique. Turned out to be the fact that I was using a kitchen towel to wipe off the hone between passes, and it was leaving invisible fibers behind on the hone. A quick rinse in the sink fixed it.

This may be completely obvious to others but it is kind of embarrassing to think back to how long I have been playing around with this before figuring out that rubbing a soft cotton towel on an abrasive surface just might abrade that towel.

Hey, at least ya figured it out.

I had the same issue, now I always rinse under water and rub with my hands to remove any lint, dust or stray moustache haor (you'd be surprised!).

Just curious - why would you wipe the hone after *each* pass? I've never heard of that, read about it, or seen it in any video?

Originally Posted by sqzbxr

Just curious - why would you wipe the hone after *each* pass? I've never heard of that, read about it, or seen it in any video?

I don't think he meant between each and every pass, just at intervals.

"... I was using a kitchen towel to wipe off the hone between passes..." I read that to mean between each pass, but it's certainly not clear. I still don't get the idea of wiping it with anything rather than rinsing it clean under running water. The whole idea is to keep the surface free of contaminates.

Originally Posted by sqzbxr

Just curious - why would you wipe the hone after *each* pass? I've never heard of that, read about it, or seen it in any video?

Yes, I mis-wrote -- meant to say that I would clean off the surface of the hone after, say, doing a bout of 40 circles. I wanted to get rid of the swarf, spray on some clean water, and see what I was doing. Getting up and going to the sink to rinse off the hone didn't enter my mind when I could just give it a quick swipe with a cloth.

Live and learn.