Thread: 3 hone enough?

Originally Posted by avatar1999

Get a bevel setter (1k) and a Combination Coticule. There's your 4 hones

1) set the bevel on 1k

2) Coti w/ slurry

3) BBW w/ slurry to keen the edge up

4) Coti w/ water

Then strop and shave

the problem with that is the combination stone is twice the budget i have available, eventually i would love to buid up to a system like the one you suggest, but for the time being i have very little money. and have found a cheap 1k/6k stone and already have a c12k and so if i can get away with just the 1k,6k and 12k i`ll try that and build up from there,

Stubear, thanks for the response. So you need a loupe to see what you're doing? I do have a 30X loupe, but I kinda thought when people talked about scratch-patterns on their edges they were talking about bare-eye. But just to confirm, is the point so that you know when a given stage is complete? I.e., if you achieve a uniform "polish" at a given stage, you know you can move to the next one? I've mostly relied on testing by cutting my arm hairs - I can tell how sharp it is by how easily it cuts, and pretty quickly you figure out how sharp it should be at a given stage/hone, and then test to make sure it's like that at toe, center, and heel. Not sure whether this system is more or less exact than yours? I do have a perpetually bare left arm, though.

And rob/stubear: interesting what you say there. I also saw somewhere in Bart Torfs' writings that the BBW actually maxes out a higher keenness than the coticule, but I thought the progression was more like: 1) BBW with slurry, 2) BBW with lighter slurry, 3) coti with slurry, 4) coti with lighter slurry, 5) BBW with no slurry, 6) coti with no sliurry. Of course steps 1 & 2 can be combined and steps 3 & 4 can be combined. But maybe I misunderstood things. I have been confused about this issue: that the BBW is supposedly a coarser stone than the coticule, but that, as Bart says, it "maxes out a higher keenness than the coticule".

This looks like a good set of 4 grits with a lapper
Sharpening Supplies - Norton

Also woodworking had a great price on the Chinese 12k. Be sure to check the specials, I found a deal where you get 15% off one item so I paid $27 for the big stone. Natural Polishing Water Stone - Woodcraft.com

Good luck,

Silver2

You can actually get a great edge with just a coticule and tape and a slurry stone. Four stones is a LOT and isn't actually mandatory. Check out Coticule.be for the details on how to do this. There is a forum on this site too from Bart of Coticule.Be that explains the process. I think it's called "one coticule honing" or something.

I am serious, this method is great if you want to keep it simple, Bart's a genius of the Belgian stones.