Thread: A Honing Lesson from my barber

Jim this is icing on cake compared to last one with translation. Another bang up job :Beer:

There's nothing more awesome than being able to hang out and chill with cool barber.

Quick Q? I'm a little confused I thought it was 3-1 ratio? With 3 strokes being concave side ( kanji up ) and 1 on convex?

BTW did you palm stroke it to remove the bur or was there none to begin with?

Thanks,

Ivan

Thank you for sharing your story.

I aspire to be a man like your barber, he truly is the best kind of man.

Wow, how cool!

you better get crackin, I want to see pictures of the kiita

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I find this very interesting. I've observed that dark edge on some razors I have honed and didn't know what to make of it. I sort of thought I had went 'past it'. Appears I was doing alright after all. I'll have to try for that deliberately and see what it shaves like.

Me too. On the finial polishing stone I try for the point where I can see only Black Ice (my term) for the edge under my microscope, or where the edge just seems to disappear to my naked eye. The razors I get to this point are my very sharpest.

Interestingly enough that honing technique sounds strangely familiar to me. It was how I was taught to hone a plane iron, by an old Redneck. Right down to the stand leaning slightly over the hone and the two fingers pressure, 10 strokes down and back, then backhone off the burr with one on the flat.

I've got a particularly stubborn razor sitting on the workbench right now, I might have to give this a go. 10 down and back one one the back flip 10 down and back one on the back, next higher stone.........

@JImR:
I honed my Iwasaki the way you described and I had a very good shave this morning.
As there had not been a consensus on how to hone a kamisori I had always honed it as one hones western style razors. That worked well too but this might be even better, I don't know yet.

How does your barber strop his kamisoris? The same way we do or does he also use a 10:1 ratio?

Thanks for bumping this, I forgot I'd some unanswered questions :P

Also I'm curious why the Tosuke is 3:1 whereas Iwasaki is 10:1? I don't have Tosuke so I'm basing on pics I've seen but they are indeed different. I didn't realize the drastic honing change. But one might say it's dependent on condition of razor.

Reading Jim's OP I get the impression the 10:1 or rather 20:1 ratio applies to all kamisori.

Basically it is a 20:1 ratio as you go up and down the hone 10 times and do a single stroke spine leading with the kanji side of the blade.

Originally Posted by Kees

Reading Jim's OP I get the impression the 10:1 or rather 20:1 ratio applies to all kamisori.

Basically it is a 20:1 ratio as you go up and down the hone 10 times and do a single stroke spine leading with the kanji side of the blade.

Yeah. I really think it's like anything--there's no ONE way to do it, but they all have something in common: more honing on the Omote, less on the Ura. As to why, well, it's not like honing is a science! Everyone's got their own take on things, and not just in Japan.

Kees, I'm glad you're getting success with this! Like I said, it's just the way I was taught, and I've seen the results for myself, so this is the way I do it.

And Kees, he strops without any ratio, but he strops very little...and finishes on his arm!

Happy honing!

Lynn is getting good results with the 20:1 ratio as well: http://straightrazorpalace.com/japan...tml#post479927

Originally Posted by JimR

And Kees, he strops without any ratio, but he strops very little...and finishes on his arm!

Hi Jim.

When you say you barber strops very little, can you quantify that? For me with a Western straight I used to only do about 20 passes on leather daily, but I've read of some people doing 80 passes on linen and then 80 on each of a couple of types of leather - which to me seems pretty excessive.

What would you recommend for me stropping when my Kamisori and my Kanoyama 10k arrives, for both the canvas and leather sides?

Cheers