Thread: Question about honing

I just got a Naniwa 12K and decided to polish my Double arrow just to practice. Something I noticed was that the edge of the stone all the way down the side where the heel or maybe the shoulder was was grey where it was rubbing metal off. I hope I am painting the right picture with words.

Is this normal? What am I doing wrong? How should this be avoided? Why is the edge of the hone rubbing the shoulder and heel?

many thx Kris

Hi,

The Naniwas need flattening before use; I use 600 grit carbide paper, though there is some debate about whether such papers can leave grit embedded in the hone !

There are a few things that might lead to what you have seen e.g.:

Sometimes the razor spine gets wider at the shoulder end and this will contact the hone first leading to what you have seen.

Sometimes the blade is warped.

The resident honemeisters here will be able to give you a better and fuller explanation

Best regards

Russ

There are actually 3 things that can be causing this..

1. Lap the stone

2. Chamfer/round the edges of the stone

3. 75% of all DA's have shoulder / heel problems that need fixing..

+1 on what has been said already. But it also sounds to me like you might have been a little reluctant to use this stone and ended up applying pressure only to te heel.

What Glenn said about the heel on a da can become exacerbated if you hold the razor at an angle while applying the back and forth strokes.

Always something - isn't it? ....Smile...

Enjoy!

Ray

I don't feel like I used pressure. Should I use and "X" pattern instead of going straight?

With setting a bevel I do circles and back and forth strokes first as Lynn shows in this video here. Then I continue with the X stroke. I never just go straight across the hone, always the x.

There will be swarf (gray residue of metal) on the hone to an extent. If , as Glen said, the heel area was not properly shaped at the factory that might be the reason your getting the swarf there or , as Ray said, you may be applying more pressure there.

Check out the honing tutorial in the 1961 barber manual excerpt here for a bit on the x stroke.