Thread: Stone Size As It Affects Honing Technique

Superfly, I managed to find my microscope, and upon examination, there might be more truth to what you are saying than I thought. I am moving this thread to a more descriptive one so that we can follow and reference it more easily - titled Wire Edges and Magnification To See Them. To be continued. )

Hmmm...won't let me post a new topic. Will try again later.

When I first brought the Belgian hones to the SRP folk, Lynn demonstrated to me the importance of using an 8x3" stone. That size is really great for a bench stone for straight razor honers. I also have some 3"x4" stones (coticules) that I also use and I use circular strokes on them if I'm feeling lazy and X-Pattern strokes that are short. It's alot lighter to carry in luggage than an 8x3" stone! Mostly though I don't have to sharpen when travelling as I only sharpen once a month or so. A strop is all I need on a day to day basis and for travelling that comes down to a piece of leather I lay on a bathroom counter top.

I also carry a smaller coticule in my kit that's about 1.5" x 3". A number of SRPers carry them when travelling in case of a ding or nick in a dropped blade or for a quick touch up. I also use it to sharpen my pocket knife. With smaller stones you just have to be more careful about the stroke but that's not hard as you don't need to do that much sharpening with those stones. The slurry does the work.

Howard