Thread: Circles on a Finisher

Originally Posted by hi_bud_gl

great work and experiment.
if you do forward and backward fast movement that will speed up the process too. Only important is pressure. your hands needs to get use to put equal pressure both side of the blade same.
if am not mistaken dovo always finishes their razors fast circular motion.hope this helps.

I read that too!

Like Lynn by the time I get to my finisher I don't need that many strokes but I don't see why it wouldn't work well as long as you finish up with a few straight strokes.

Actually I've used that technique when doing major restoration on some Japanese Traditional Straights from lower to upper grits.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

I use as little pressure as possible, which is how I always hone. I've not had any warped blades recently, but leading angles can help, as Lynn said. What I have experienced, on the other hand, is smiling blades. For those, I rock the blade from the toe to the heal and back as I'm making circles. As I'm making circles, I move the blade perpendicular to the hone (because my hone is narrower than my blades), so I rock towards the heal when I have the heal of the blade on the hone and I rock the blade towards the toe when I have the toe of the razor on the hone.

The 45 degree circles and 45 degree X strokes definitely work on Smiley blades too along with frowning blades and those that have been honed so much that you have significant flattening in the spine at different places even if different on both sides. They can be used consistently from bevel setting to finishing.

Lynn

I see lots of mentions that finishing up with straight strokes seem to be important. I'm not saying that I disagree, but that I don't know that that is the case. Is that grounded in practice (i.e. did you try only circling and find that the shave was not great) or is that something that comes from knowledge of cutting (certain scratch patterns/teeth cut better) or somewhere else? I'm going to try only circles on my C12k next time to see what that does.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

I see lots of mentions that finishing up with straight strokes seem to be important. I'm not saying that I disagree, but that I don't know that that is the case. Is that grounded in practice (i.e. did you try only circling and find that the shave was not great) or is that something that comes from knowledge of cutting (certain scratch patterns/teeth cut better) or somewhere else? I'm going to try only circles on my C12k next time to see what that does.

I don't know about straight strokes, but I do finish with X strokes after circles always. From looking at the microscope, I have seen that the X strokes really even out all the visible marks from circles when present (depending on the grit and type of stone being used). I personally have found that shaving was better (smoother/easier glide) using the X strokes v. just circles which is why I added them going back some years ago when I started incorporating circles as a process and progression.

Actually, I still prefer teaching new guys how to do pyramids and X stroke progressions before doing the circles so that they really get to learn a good stroke and how different progressions and different stones will perform first.

Have fun,

Lynn