Thread: When did Breadknifing get popular?

Breadknifing? That’s the only thing I don’t like about it- the silly name.

I find that option to be intuitive, rather than regular honing to get rid of wasted material. Breadknifining is intutative. Restoration of the bevel at 1000 grit is quick and easy imho.

Take it one step further and polish the flat ground edge to finish polish and you have a technique. There is not additional removal of material over and above regular honing that I can see- maybe 1/1000th or so.

Originally Posted by kevint

I find that option to be intuitive, rather than regular honing to get rid of wasted material. Breadknifining is intutative. Restoration of the bevel at 1000 grit is quick and easy imho.

That is it in a nutshell. The metal has to come off and if the honer knows how to restore the bevel there is no problem. If OTOH, they don't know how then they have no business fooling with it to begin with. If the metal to be removed is so much that it will affect the geometry of the razor then whether it is worth the cost of the regrind has to be considered. I just sent a Torrey back to an ebay seller as the edge was too badly pitted too far up in and above the bevel to be restorable. Each case has to be judged on it's own merits.

Originally Posted by JimmyH-AD

That is it in a nutshell. The metal has to come off and if the honer knows how to restore the bevel there is no problem. If OTOH, they don't know how then they have no business fooling with it to begin with. If the metal to be removed is so much that it will affect the geometry of the razor then whether it is worth the cost of the regrind has to be considered. I just sent a Torrey back to an ebay seller as the edge was too badly pitted too far up in and above the bevel to be restorable. Each case has to be judged on it's own merits.

Yep, there is a point where regrinding may be necessary, however there are too many good razors still on the market to even concern oneself with that situation, especially considering the razor will be a totally different animal when it returns from the grindshop.

Well Glen,

The razor is waving at you thankfully.

But honestly, it looks to me that it has been honed on a stone which is not flat and this has taken the middle out causing a slight frown.

I'd hold it by its spine and rub the edge on a low grit stone until the edge was even and then reset the bevel probably starting with an 800 grit wet and dry , then 1000 then 1500 a then onto my hones. I'd be checking to see when the bevel on the spine was reset and even along its length, before moving off the 800 grit.

But I wouldn't tell anybody else how to do it and then I wouldn't have to listen to all these guys telling me how to do my job. And I certainly wouldn't give the technique a title. That's just asking for it.

Keep smiling.

Originally Posted by English

But I wouldn't tell anybody else how to do it and then I wouldn't have to listen to all these guys telling me how to do my job. And I certainly wouldn't give the technique a title. That's just asking for it.

Keep smiling.

Point well taken....

PS: However if I were to keep all the restoration secrets to myself what would truly be the point of our community here, that is well established in sharing information !!!!

IDK about this one.

As a relative noob I'll throw in my $.02

I first read about "breadknifing" in a post by Glen, and I wish that I had known about it earlier. I had just spent an entire Saturday fixing and establishing the bevels on 2 blades. 1 had a huge chip in it, and the other was wavier than Glen's example in this thread. Over 9 hours on the 1k, and neither one was ready to progress yet.

Had I known about "breadknifing", I would have saved myself at least 5 hours that day.

I now have done it a few times with great results.

Is it something for a total newb to try? nope.
Is it something to try on your 1st restore? nope.

But it is an advanced technique that has it's place in my bag o tricks, and I'm happy to know it's there if I need it.

Glen,

Not that you need the advice, English pretty much summed up what I would do: hone the edge perpendicular (let's avoid "the verb") till straight, then rebuild the bevel, starting on a DMT 325. If I also needed to restore the blade, I would do that first and smooth out the flat on that spine while sanding all the way up before polishing.
Imo, any other attempt to make that blade straight will end in frustration. If you'd attempt to hone on a coarse hone to make it straight again, you'd end up way beyond the point where the blade is smallest now and still have not managed to make it straight. You could also try honing a bit here and honing a bit there, making sure you had tape on that spine to keep it from being ground down unevenly. (Even if the flat is uneven right now, it probably is consistent enough in thickness) That method would be awkward and very difficult to get it straight. In the end the only decent shot to get this thing straight is to grind in the direction of edge with that edge perpendularly touching a coarse hone.

Alan,
thank you for your kind post. I'm sorry if I came across as being irritated. I'm an open minded person. I might get carried away in a discussion, but I will always consider all arguments. It's just that I didn't see any real arguments to invalidate the "breadknifing" technique. That annoyed me a bit, but it wasn't directed to anyone in person.

Tim,
I surely can't claim that it was a traditional technique, nor can you that it wasn't. I can only speculate that a craftsman repairing a blade 100 years ago, probably used a whole arsenal of techniques to tackle the problems as they were presented. Those craftsman are gone nowadays, mavericks like Glen left aside. If a blade needs a new bevel (due to a serious chip or a heavy frown), making it straight (or smiling) before recreating the bevel, is just plain good practice. No one can seriously deny that.
I testified that I also sometimes remove a very small portion of the edge, leaving way over 90% of the bevel intact, to remove weak or overhoned steel at the very tip. Suppose someone honed a razor on pastes, all the way up to .25 diamond compound, and then found the resulting edge harsh and irritating. How does he need to correct that? I would recommend him to drag the edge for two strokes over the side of a Belgian Blue, with no peculiar pressure. And then reestablish a flat bevel (it's convexed from the pastes) My reasons for that advice are in my first post on this thread. Other people would recommend cutting cork, others tell to turn it over the edge on the strop, both options that I don't really like, but that's probably for emotional reasons.

I understand now that your concern is to prevent newbies from getting knee-deep into honing trouble. But I'm telling you, they had it coming. Because they started fumbling without taking the effort of properly informing themselves first. There's nothing we can do about that.
I'm not the kind of person that locks and hides the kitchen knives for his kids. I provide them with information and learn them to respect those knives and what they can do. My razors are sitting in open boxes on top of my desk.

My conclusion and newbie disclaimer:
Breadknifing can remove an entire bevel within a matter of minutes. It can remove the razorsharpness of a blade within seconds. Sometimes it's the only way to salvage a damaged edge. Sometimes it's an option, among others, to tackle problems with weak or corroded steel steel at the very tip of the cutting bevel. It will never solve a thing for someone who doens't know what he's doing.
A sharp edge is never the result of fortuitously doing the right things in the right order, unless one breaks a mirror.

Bart.

The main reason for breadknifing is to make sure you have a straight edge
and it's not new. they have been doing it for a long time
Carpenters and Cabinet Makers use that method all the times on their chisels, plane blades and even more on cabinet scrapers.
They even have special jigs to do it.
Having a straight edge is the first step to sharpening these blades and is of upmost importance.
When shaving, a real straight edge is not as important because the skin is pliable and will follow a slight curve.
Not so with wood. With a wavy edge you will see the waves in the finish wood.

I have only used this in extreme circumstances and only on blades that require serious reprofiling.
I had a nice W&B that was 8/8 at the toe and 5/8 at the heel, which is fine for a chopper, but this was a holl ground square point and it just wasn't going to hone right. Now it took some time to get it right but 'breadknifing'(this is not a term I like for the process!) really made this blade a great shaver. Now I have a perfectly proportioned 5/8 hollowground blade.