Thread: Alternative to honing/stroping cycles - Doing Sets?

What your suggesting has been done by others. I believe it was Traveller(Gary Alfonso) who described it to me and he learned it from another guy. I have done this on the coarse grits (1000, 4000 ) when I am trying to establish a brand new bevel or wear out a sizable nick. Thankfully I seldom have to go to that extreme. But when I do I always follow that with the traditional cycle stroke, up, flip, back.

I used to be in a hurry when I honed. I wanted it done "quickly!"
Was that ever a mistake! Honing a Str8 razor is like dating women. Some are easy going country types and some are Diva's who are very demanding. You have to pay attention to both, give them what they need and only then will they give you what you want.

Almost every new guy who stops over to my place for a honing session is performing the strokes to fast. The edge is not being kept on the hone in a uniform manner thru-out the stroke.
Slow down, you will get there faster.


Just my two cents,

I don't really see the point in doing sets. You 'd have to lift the razor up, move it back to the start position, and put it back down on the surface, careful not to hit it with the edge before the spine is in contact. I'm sure that, after some practice, just flipping the razor over and performing a stroke while moving back to the start position will turn out to be quicker and more convenient than doing sets.

With regular knife honing, one hones till a burr is present and than hones the other side of the knife. This gives a very decent knife edge, but a good razor edge lies beyond the burr threshold. Your method would introduce the risk of raising the early stages of a burr, before you turn the razor over for the opposite set. For bevel creation on the low grits that poses no problem, but when refining and polishing that bevel to the keenness needed for a good shave, I would not take that risk.
Will a car with octagonal wheels drive? Yes, I guess it will. But why reinvent the wheel?

Bart.

I don't see the advantage either, it'll make you travel twice the distance to do the same amount of stropping/honing. And you risk messing the edge more by re-placing the blade instead of just turning on the spine.

With a Japanese Straight there is an advantage because you are doing back and forth strokes so to do say 30 strokes continuously and then flip and do 20 on the other side is more efficient. With a western razor there is no advantage to doing sets.