Thread: How do you hone?

Two hands, hones on table, hones facing North/South (hone away and toward me rather than left to right or right to left.

Chris L

On the table only.

Holding the hone in your hand while honing a spike point taught me a good lesson

Table or other stable platform (e.g., cabinet), as I usually use the bigger stones like a Norton 4K/8K or a Chinese 12K. I've honed N-S, but have been finding E-W working pretty good for me at the moment. I have some barber hones that I will use in my hand too.

Hone in left hand, razor in the right. This seems to help assuage my ham- handedness, making for a reasonable attempt at "weight of razor only" on the stone.

I get the most enjoyment out of holding the hone in my hand but most of my stones are too big (8 inch DMT's, Norton etc). The only stones I can hold are my finishing hones.

So I guess you could say that I put the stones on a table for setting the bevel, and hold the stone for honing.

A stable surface , I would be afraid of inconsistent results if I were holding the hone.

Hone on top of Norton lid, that arrangement on newpaper or some such, nearest short side of the hone roughly parallel to chest, two-handed! (It came as a bit of a revelation to me when I saw Bill Ellis honing two-handed on his DVD, as I find that much easier than honing one handed.)

I voted other, because it varies. I've only used a Swaty thus far, so if the razor needs a bit of work, I might use two hands on the blade for a little more pressure, and that would mean putting the stone on a tabletop. Otherwise, I like to hold it in my hand. For my slightly warped Pipe, I stand the stone in its side on a tabletop and use two hands, because it's hard to stay flat on such a narrow surface with one hand.