Originally Posted by
rickytimothy
Well put. This is exactly what I was complaining about, basically. In the normal world one of two things is normally true:
1. You can make a decently accurate guess at how well someone knows what they're talking about by what company they work for, what degree they have, what rank they have, etc.
2. There is some level of consensus on how beginners should approach learning a subject, or some level of consensus on a general approach that works well.
In razor sharpening there is absolutely none of any of that, which makes it almost impossible to parse information as a newcomer. Most of the masters don't really have credentials, and the one well known sharpener who has a degree in metallurgy has disputed methods, there's no working eye test for which sharpeners are good or bad over the internet, no one agrees on what terminology to use for honing techniques, and despite the apparent simplicity of the concept of sharpening a piece of metal, every single step of the process is hotly debated. On top of that, there is some instructors on youtube who unironically don't know what they're doing, and it would be hard to tell which is which without already being a master of the craft.
I do agree with everyone's general sentiment that it's the kind of thing, where if you do it often enough, and try enough techniques, and really sink in some time and effort, eventually you will just develop a feel for the stone, and things will fall into place naturally. That's exactly the approach I plan on taking. It's just a really absurd sounding learning environment. It kind of reminds me of cooking, where there is 800 slightly different ways to cook scrambled eggs, all of them work, and lots of cooks will totally slander other cooks method as total garbage.
If I were teaching this to somebody, I would probably try to frame it as "Sharpening is all about feel, and trial and error, it is essentially not teachable at all except for mistakes you can avoid making." "The reason the terminology sounds so confusing and contradictory is probably because it doesn't matter, they are all going off of feel, it's not a rubik's cube." Trying to describe what your muscles are feeling would be necessary, but is extremely difficult and confusing, so it makes more sense to simply explain that it can't be explained.
I bookmarked that link and I'll take a look shortly, I have lessons with knife guy tomorrow so it will be nice to finally see someone, if not a master, at least who is familiar with sharpening, to show me what he does in person.