Thread: Question on Murray Carter's honing technique

Oh ya, by mid summer he will have razors showing up

I dont think I could fix a bevel one handed on 220 paper.

Do you in any way index your body position so that you can feel the constancy of the angle throughout the strokes? fingertips(though you dont want constant rubbing. touch points. I catch myself looking out the the corners of eyes at forearms, watching the wave of slurry. And at the end I cheat by raising a small micro bevel if it might need it. With razors you know how to do. with knives you have to be the spine,

I do polish down the whole bevel on my mora each time I sharpen it. It never gets much sharper because it has a microbevel. every so often i do reset it all the way

Originally Posted by kevint

I dont think I could fix a bevel one handed on 220 paper.

Do you in any way index your body position so that you can feel the constancy of the angle throughout the strokes?

I've been practicing this quite a lot. I put the stone on the counter (with a towel under it so it doesn't slide around), wet it with water, and lay the knife across the stone at about a 45 degree angle so I can pretend the stone is wider than it really is. I am left-handed, and I do both sides with my left hand. Suppose I were holding the knife straight out in front of me, edge down: I will call these the left and right sides of the knife.

When I'm doing the left side of the knife, I lay my index finger along the spine. When I do the right side of the knife, I lay my index finger on the upward-facing left side of the knife. This is for stability.

I place the knife on the stone and initially find the angle by looking and feeling with the fingers of my right hand. Then I make circles on the stone, slowly drawing the knife from heel to tip. (I don't bend my wrist, I use my whole arm). When the angle is just right, I can feel a suction effect like there's honey smeared on the stone, from the two wet, flat surfaces rubbing together. This is exactly the same feeling I get from arazor on a wet Swaty.

I finish the Murray Carter way. I backhone a couple of strokes to put in a tiny primary bevel & remove the burr. Then I lightly draw the edge through soft wood to remove any burr remnants. Then I backhone a couple more strokes. That's it.

From Dwarven Chef's picture, it looks like the secondary bevel is very uneven and is not meant to be used as an angle guide a la Mora knife. So Murray really is freehanding it with both hands, back & forth. Well, his way may be better than mine, but I can't do it the way he does it. My grip might be weird but I'm used to it, for good or ill.

Hope that was comprehensible.

Murray's last newsletter mentioned he was going to start making straight razors in the near future.

Yup both western and Japanese

Originally Posted by Johnny J

I've been practicing this quite a lot. I put the stone on the counter (with a towel under it so it doesn't slide around), wet it with water, and lay the knife across the stone at about a 45 degree angle so I can pretend the stone is wider than it really is. I am left-handed, and I do both sides with my left hand. Suppose I were holding the knife straight out in front of me, edge down: I will call these the left and right sides of the knife.

When I'm doing the left side of the knife, I lay my index finger along the spine. When I do the right side of the knife, I lay my index finger on the upward-facing left side of the knife. This is for stability.

I place the knife on the stone and initially find the angle by looking and feeling with the fingers of my right hand. Then I make circles on the stone, slowly drawing the knife from heel to tip. (I don't bend my wrist, I use my whole arm). When the angle is just right, I can feel a suction effect like there's honey smeared on the stone, from the two wet, flat surfaces rubbing together. This is exactly the same feeling I get from arazor on a wet Swaty.

I finish the Murray Carter way. I backhone a couple of strokes to put in a tiny primary bevel & remove the burr. Then I lightly draw the edge through soft wood to remove any burr remnants. Then I backhone a couple more strokes. That's it.

From Dwarven Chef's picture, it looks like the secondary bevel is very uneven and is not meant to be used as an angle guide a la Mora knife. So Murray really is freehanding it with both hands, back & forth. Well, his way may be better than mine, but I can't do it the way he does it. My grip might be weird but I'm used to it, for good or ill.

Hope that was comprehensible.

Rather than extending the index on the spine try keeping it on the bottom side, more of a pinch grip with the thumb on top. and x strokes rather than circles. might help.

Hey Kevin, I like to grind my secondary bevel at a pretty steep angle, so there's no room for my finger under the blade. Also, I agree that the X-stroke is much easier to keep a consistent angle, but the circles hog off more steel faster, which is important because most Western knives seem to have a fairly obtuse single-bevel grind, so I have to put in that acute secondary bevel by hand, from scratch. After fixing all my knives this way, I had so much practice doing the circles that the circle stroke began to feel natural.

Originally Posted by Johnny J

Hey Kevin, I like to grind my secondary bevel at a pretty steep angle, so there's no room for my finger under the blade. Also, I agree that the X-stroke is much easier to keep a consistent angle, but the circles hog off more steel faster, which is important because most Western knives seem to have a fairly obtuse single-bevel grind, so I have to put in that acute secondary bevel by hand, from scratch. After fixing all my knives this way, I had so much practice doing the circles that the circle stroke began to feel natural.

Okay.

I was sharpening last night and thought" hey where's that finger reference- point you tried to convince Johnny of?" Angle too high.

with your secondary bevel though you should not need to hog off a lot of metal, and really I am unconvinced circles are more effective than back and forth xs

Originally Posted by Johnny J

Hey Kevin, I like to grind my secondary bevel at a pretty steep angle, so there's no room for my finger under the blade. Also, I agree that the X-stroke is much easier to keep a consistent angle, but the circles hog off more steel faster, which is important because most Western knives seem to have a fairly obtuse single-bevel grind, so I have to put in that acute secondary bevel by hand, from scratch. After fixing all my knives this way, I had so much practice doing the circles that the circle stroke began to feel natural.

Its time to convert to the dark side and start using Japanese knives, they take the most amazing edges a knife can.

Originally Posted by mainaman

Its time to convert to the dark side and start using Japanese knives, they take the most amazing edges a knife can.

I've never seen a jp boning knife, nor a paring knife that I really liked, or their cleavers. Some of those old occidental knives are really quite lovable. one of each of those and a santoku sums up my kitchen knife needs.

If I really wanted to cut down, pare down to necessity. It'd be the bridge cutlery clever and the santoku.

(im not really sure it should be called a cleaver. 1.5 inch at the heel. 2 inch at the toe. being thickest at the hilt and distal tapered to both ends it is really well made.)