Thread: When did Breadknifing get popular?

I first came across this option while using my own intuition during a honing session one time. I believe it was before I was even on SRP and surely had never seen or heard about it before. It is very effective and SHOULD only be used as a last resort, but why would anyone try to deny the merits of it? How can it not be a common sense practice for honing if common sense was the only way I came about using it? I tend to agree with the seasoned honers here and their viewpoint on the practice. I wouldn't suggest it on the 'vast majority' of razors honed or even many of them. Why get so caught up in it though? If a new honer wants to use the technique on every razor and come across the pros and cons (which it definitely has) of its use by himself- he has every right. I just won't be the one telling him to do it.

I've seen my share of new honers coming to the forums, in despair because they have no success with their first self-honed razor. They often tried a bit of everything: honed a few laps on what we razorguys call a coarse hone (a 1K or so), a few pyramids on the Norton, some prgressive honing, a bit of pastes, perhaps a coticule with slurry. They're terified of "overhoning", but usually they're actually "underhoning", failing to achieve a good bevel before going to the finer hones. Many times, because they also did pastes, the razor shaves a bit and gives (phoney) positive readings on the TNT and the TPT. Whatever they try, they'll allways end up with roughly the same unpleasant shave.

In such cases I usually suggest some way of dulling the edge first, to make the razor fail all tests that can show us when the bevel setting stage of honing is over. I used to accomplish that myself with one or two swipes, edge down on a Belgian Blue. But since there seems to be a Breadknifing Police developing on the forums, I've been experimenting a bit, lately. I found that the most reliable and "soft" (so to speak) method to do just enough dulling for the above purposes, is to draw the edge, breadknifing style, over the bottom of a glass jar. The lightest possible pressure, one swipe, sometimes two. I often need to dull a razor, in order to prevent false results on one of my honing experiments. It works like a charm.
On a razor that had a good bevel to start with, it does only require very little work to reestablish that bevel. On a razor that had a convexed bevel, it will of course take as long as it takes, but at least, when the razors starts shaving arm hair again, or passes the TNT, you know for sure that the bevel planes are straight and keen again.

I would like to know if it is considered "against all common sense" to make such a suggestion to a stumbeling newbie with a suspect bevel?

Bart.

Sounds great to me. From what you describe it would be the best of everything.

Only thing I could see is that it's still subjective. There are the hair tests but I gather they're not definitive and can give a false "pass" when there is still something fundamentally not right.

For the bevel setting stage and "sharpening" (as opposed to polishing/finishing) I'd think there would some more objective measure. Why not the microscope/magnified inspection? The $13 RS microscope seems to be barely passable but it's effective and within everybody's grasp. A good set of edge pictures with "correct" ones and "wrong" ones should give a beginner a pretty objective measure of their edge in this stage of the honing process. Wouldn't it?

Maybe we've gotten to the point that we overlook the fact that honing is:

-difficult
-finnicky
-individual
-not a science
-always different
-full of variables
-infinitely full of variables

etc.

Why bother to destroy a bevel just for the opportunity to reset it? I've reset countless bevels by just working on a bad bevel as is. Not saying that is the only way to do it... Anyway, we all started somewhere guys. We all passed hurdles. We may not have all 'breadknifed' a razor, but I'm sure we all learned something from it whether we did or did not try to. Is it a viable way to adjust the sharpness of an edge such as is every honing technique? Yes. Do we all need to or even want to do it? No. Is it something to be taken carefully? Maybe, maybe not. We all need to really just learn for ourselves if no one else can give us a solid answer... and let's face it- with so many varying opinions, there is no solid answer.

When did breadknifing get popular? Who knows.

Originally Posted by Philadelph

Why bother to destroy a bevel just for the opportunity to reset it?

Because you don't know if you have a bevel or not. That's the problem. If you are not capable of determining that then you want a sure method of achieving a known starting point/condition. I think it boils down to that.

Originally Posted by Quick

Because you don't know if you have a bevel or not. That's the problem. If you are not capable of determining that then you want a sure method of achieving a known starting point/condition. I think it boils down to that.

Sticky's post makes sense for those who don't have microscope, but as for the above, If you don't know whether you have any kind of bevel, destroying what you do have won't make it any more obvious! It isn't the starting point that is most important, it's the end result. I'm thinking that any new honer who starts off by trying to set a bevel will be doing so on a razor that will not shave. If that is the case, then just working on it until he has a bevel and can shave hair is the logical progression to me. A breadknifed edge will shave no better or worse than a razor without a set bevel technically speaking.

Anyone who doesn't use magnification when they hone is at a definite disadvantage. Before I used a 30X microscope I honed and shaved with razors that had partial bevels, micro chips that couldn't be seen with the naked eye. I have flat honed micro chips out and in a fairly short time. If the chipping is extensive breadknifing is more efficient.

The bevel needs to have the scratch pattern run from the cutting edge to the top of the bevel. It needs to be the same color under light with magnification or it is on more then one plane. A double bevel. This cannot be seen without magnification.

Howard's new video "Honing the Perfect Edge" is on the way to me. I have heard from a friend who has seen it that Harellson Stanley of Shapton takes a razor and lightly breadknifes progressively it through all of the grits from coarsest to finest. I haven't tried this yet but I may later today.

My usual routine if I do the breadknifing is to use my D8E 1200 and use whatever amount of pressure and strokes it takes checking with an eye loupe as I go. After I have gotten the edge cleaned up to my satisfaction I back hone 5 round trips and then begin to set the bevel with the usual Livi (A.K.A. Japanese strokes)and circular strokes. I don't do it unless it is necessary and wouldn't recommend it as a routine step in honing a razor. Just my 0.04 cents.

EDIT ; Just watched the DVD. Harrelson does a very light breadknifing stroke on the 16K glassStone after some of his "side sharpening" on the 1K. He then goes through the progression up to the 16 and repeats the breadknifing stroke once and even more lightly then the earlier one. He then continues on the 16 with his side sharpening and finally moves to the 30K. So I misunderstood what I had heard before seeing the DVD for myself. Very interesting presentation BTW.

Originally Posted by Philadelph

Sticky's post makes sense for those who don't have microscope, but as for the above, If you don't know whether you have any kind of bevel, destroying what you do have won't make it any more obvious! It isn't the starting point that is most important, it's the end result. I'm thinking that any new honer who starts off by trying to set a bevel will be doing so on a razor that will not shave. If that is the case, then just working on it until he has a bevel and can shave hair is the logical progression to me. A breadknifed edge will shave no better or worse than a razor without a set bevel technically speaking.

1st, We're not talking about "destroying" a bevel, only about achieving a condition where it fails the TNT, TPT and SAT (Shave Arm hair Test).

The most common bevel problems are:

1. a convex bevel (usually caused by extensive pasted stropping) and
2. a double bevel (usually caused by honing with tape on the spine):
both 1 and 2 may pass the TNT TPT and SAT, can be revealed with the MMT (Magic Marker Test) and with inspection of how light reflects off the edge.

3. a dull edge (usually caused by wear after much (ab)use of the razor):
does not pass TNT TPT and SAT, but cannot be revealed with the MMT (Magic Marker Test) nor with inspection of how light reflects of the edge. Cannot be seen at magnification. Both bevel panes are striaight, they just don't meet each other at a small enough line to be keen.

4. a microchipped edge (usually cause by too much pressure and/or hones that are prone to overhone): may pass the TNT TPT and SAT, cannot be revealed with the MMT (Magic Marker Test) nor with inspection of how light reflects of the edge. Can be seen under magnification.

The glass jar method removes false TNT, TPT and SAT readings, and only returns them when the condition of a good bevel with straight planes meeting each other at a keen line is met.

Honing is a craft. The rules of physics apply. There are more ways to achieve the goals involved.
The steel doesn't know how you got there.

Downstroking on a glass jar is for those cases where the razor shaves marginally while the bevel is still off, preventing good sharpening. I would never advice a newbie to downstroke an edge if it was dull to begin with. There's no point dulling an already dull edge, is there? With the exception that for removing frowns, visual chips and massive corrosion, the best way to loose the steel that needs to be sacrificed anyway, is to downstroke on a coarse hone. But that's a totally different use of the downstroking technique, that was already covered in this thread.

Best regards,
Bart.

In the Livi honing videos recently posted the Mastro does at least one light breadknifing stroke in his honing progression. One of the first ebay specials I honed was a cattaragus green lizard. I got the thing shaving but it had chips in the point end that I couldn't see with the naked eye but were visible under magnification. I honed for what I thought was quite a spell and didn't get rid of them. Later I found out about breadknifing.

I have done this with maybe a half a dozen razors. These had micro chipping or worse and it was expedient to use this method. Getting a bevel back was work but I don't know that it would have been any less had I flat honed the chips out. We are talking about an edge that resembles a hacksaw blade under the 30X lense with a larger chip here or there. For me it isn't a 'moral issue'. Breadknifing is just another method that is useful under certain circumstances.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. We're talking about inexperienced honers right? So that's a good example of something that might drive a new honer nuts. If they breadknifed they'd have a known starting condition. It really doesn't matter how much extra work it might involve or if they breaknifed a perfectly good bevel. What's important is that they are starting with a known condition.