Thread: Honing 4/8 blades.

I figured it out. I have a full sized hone for the 1k and after the 1k it cuts hair. My 4k, 8k, and 12k are all small hand held hones. On the larger straights it all worked out.

With the smaller ones I wasn't really keeping the edge down on the hone. I'm just using one hand and don't have a finger to press down the other end. This was causing the problem.

Even my smaller hones I have on the countertop when I am honing, and I have a 4x10 piece of 1 inch thick rubber that my hones or my hone holder sit on just to get that extra clearance to the counter. It also gives a good grippy surface for the hone to sit on so it doesn't move around at all. My rubber is a cut off from a anti shock mat for people standing on concrete floors. I think you could probably repurpose all kinds of things to do the same job, it was just what I had lying around.

The other complication is that the 4k and 8k are slip stones so they don't lay flat but you can stack them on each other and then they are flat.

I'm going to have to get back to doing that. I use a towel to keep things from slipping.

Originally Posted by gcbryan

I figured it out. I have a full sized hone for the 1k and after the 1k it cuts hair. My 4k, 8k, and 12k are all small hand held hones. On the larger straights it all worked out.

With the smaller ones I wasn't really keeping the edge down on the hone. I'm just using one hand and don't have a finger to press down the other end. This was causing the problem.

Honing with one hand is actually the ideal as it prevents unintended pressure but it takes a bit of practice.