Thread: Honing My First Wedge

I have a full wedge, in fact a pair of full wedges.
What Bjorn says is totally true and when you hone you have to remember that if you use tape, the fulcrum is along the line of the tape edge. If you tape make sure you tape evenly or you will end up with an uneven V (bevel)along the edge. If you lay the taped blade flat on the hone, you will be able to feel and rock the blade on the hone along the fulcrum point. To hone you must remember to rock the blade towards the edge.

I find holding my fingers towards the edge helps. Make sure your hones are flat before you start. An eneven hone will ruin your wedge quicker than you would think. By flat I mean glass flat.

Another thing you may notice if the blade is a hard steel. As you develop the bevel, honing away merrily, the tape will actually thin out and erode along the fulcrum. As it recedes towards the spine, the fulcrum is receding towards the spine and you are developing a curved V. Some complain about this issue when honing with a pasted strop.

So, after about 50 passes, it may be worthwhile changing the tape for a new one. You can see the effect with a 10x jewelers loupe.

If you want a shallow bevel use one piece of tape. If you want a steeper bevel, use two pieces of tape.

Remember, we are talking about a full wedge. The whole of the blade touches the hone.

Incidentally before you decide to use tape, there is no harm in trying without. The process refreshes the blade to a mirror shine. Also. if you tape and devlop a bevel and then want to go back again to honing without tape, think of the amount of metal you will have to remove to get back to square one.

I have tried both ways and my conclusion is they both work.

The trick I found with a full wedge is not the honing. The stropping is far more important.

First develop an edge and feel for that grip, that fur on the edge. As you progress through your hones, to polish and refine the edge make sure you don't loose the fur by pressing to hard. The blade is solid and has no give whatsoever and the only place that can give is the razors edge. You can loose that edge so quickly by pressing too hard.

When you go to the strop, use a flat bed strop. laying your hanging strop on a table will do. If you have some Thiers Issard paste or Chromium oxide, 10 light passes will help.
Anyway, 50 to 100 passes on the flat bed will finish the job. Once shaving sharp, a hanging strop is fine on a daily basis, just remember to hold it taught and don't apply pressure to the blade.

That's my wisdom for the day, hope it makes sense and helps. Tell us how it goes.

Peter

Thank you Peter for that fabulous post. Very informative and detailed.

Exactly what I was after.

Kudos to you!