Thread: Advice needed for second attempt at honing.

Hello folks,

I read the wiki, watched a ton of videos, and felt prepared to sit down and set the bevel and hone a blade I'd polished up.

I put a single layer of tape on the spine as I felt that since it was an antique store find with some hone wear, and since I'm a newb I didn't want to make its hone wear any worse.

I have a Norton 220/1000x, a Norton 4k/8k, and an SRD strop with the webbed material with chromium oxide. I started out with the bevel by doing circular motions on the 1k, I probably did about 30 circles on both sides. Then I did X strokes on the 1k until I felt the blade was passing the thumb nail test quite well. I tried shaving some arm hairs off, they came off if I tried hard but they certainly didn't pop off. I did some more x strokes, after the arm shaving test but it seemed to have no increase in sharpness.

From there I decided to go on to the pyramid, I started the pyramid at the wiki's 25 figuring since it was extremely dull and the bevel had just been reset this is probably the time to do the full pyramid (i.e. not just touching up a previously sharp blade).

After the hones I did 30 laps on the webbed fabric + chromium oxide. Then I stropped it for 120 laps or so.

I tried shaving with it. It did the job but my skin feels pretty raw.

I put it under a cheapo microscope that I have from a long time ago, and started looking at it to compare to the Dovo I have sharpened by the SRD fellas. The Dovo edge seems nice and straight, no little nicks out of the edge at all, it just looks like the end of a brand new chisel the whole way along. The edge of my hone job is not a perfect straight line, and here and there there's the tiniest little "chips" I guess out of the edge. Little bites almost. Under magnification they look like a chisel your wife used to open a paint can.

Of course I didn't do a very good job honing, but that's what this is all about, trying to learn till I get it right.

What do you guys suggest I do for the second try? Do I go right back to the bevel setting stage?

Thanks.

I'd start honing backwards. Use the highest grit continously, then only go down in grit on occasion as needed.

Thanks for the suggestion, what criteria would make you drop down to a lower grit when doing that method?

I don't disagree with AFD but I would go to whatever was going to get rid of those chips or bites that you saw under your scope. Hone till those are about gone and then maybe a conservative pyramid. Take a look at it under magnification from time to time. Just my 2 bits.

Use the Norton 4k or similar stone and do the circles until you get a nice edge free of chips. Once you get to this point, the pyramid becomes the next course. The chips have to be mitigated before trying to get the finished edge!

I think AFD is concluding that the edge is simply over honed and the minute nicks are a result of that. If so then his suggestion makes sense and should be tried first.

The other perspective is that the edge is not yet back to good steel, but almost, so going back to the 4K makes sense in that case. Stay on the 4K until that edge has no nicks of any kind.

I would try AFD approach first. BTW, he is referring to back honing to remove any wire edge as a first step. Logical.

Thank you for the advice guys.

I tried to do use the 4k to get all the chips out, first just doing lots of X patterns and checking under the microscope, I found one of the bigger micro-chips on the blade and got good at relocating it and used it as the reference point. It seemed like the X stroke was just having no effect even after 20 or so laps. I tried a few circles and still seemed like nothing was there.

I decided I must not have removed the bad edge well enough when setting the bevel in the very beginning. So I went back to the 1k and did many circles until after going along the whole blade I couldn't see a single chip. This took quite awhile actually, probably even 140 circles on both sides. I kept checking every 30 circles or so and could see the chips slowly getting smaller and smaller.

Once that was done I then did a pyramid starting at 15 with the 4k/8k. When that was done the edge was MUCH improved over my earlier try. There are no chips anymore. It's still no SRD-honed edge that's for sure, but it's much better. I shaved with it this morning and it was a pretty decent shave.

Thanks for the advice.

Robert,

From my honing lessons with Lynn, I would abandon the thumb nail test, and start developing the Thumb Pad Test. You can ruin your edge by pulling on your thumb nail.

And, depending on the condition of the edge, 30 circular strokes on the 1k is probably not enough. I was taught 40 heavy pressure circles on each side, then 10 heavy cross strokes each side. I am sure that are other ways to do this, but as a newbie honer myself, I am getting very repeatable results this way.

David

Congrats on your persistence!

Originally Posted by randydance062449

Congrats on your persistence!

When I was starting out and was picking Randy's brain a lot he always told me that with patience and persistence the edge will get sharp. Thanks again Randy.