Thread: What seems to be working now...feedback

what works for me. right from scratch 1k naniwa, or if i have to drop back to 600 duo diamond plate. I do most of the work on the 1k bevel stage. the razor has to shave arm realy well. I use normal x strokes and the odd set of back and forth and a little pressure , i mainly let the hone do the cutting to keep bevel nice and even. Once the bevel is set i work on my fastest coticule with slurry with back and forth strokes untill the bevel is smoothed out . i check with 30k loop, once all looks nice i stop . I then do dilucot on my slower coticule and finish on water. I find my slower cutter reaches keeness much easier. once i'm done i test shave and the shave is allways pritty damm good or not far of. i do add a thew laps laps on .5 .025 and cro.ox just 5 on each. this works consistantly for me. I have added escher after coticule and also nice results.

other than that i would go 4k/8k then coti paste also works . My favourite routine is my 1k followed by coticule and some kind of spray or paste but no more than 10 to 20 laps

I've been honing blades of all sorts since I was 10 or 12 years old and take a lot of things for granted when I discuss honing. When you've honed thousands and thousands of blades, you can tell quickly what you're going to have to do to get-r-done. Sometimes it's a touchup with a finishing home. Sometimes it's the nuclear option. Most times it's somewhere in between. Someone with enough time and patience could restore an Ebay special on a barber hone or Chinese 12K. I take a more results-oriented approach, though, and start with a hone that's agressive enough to get the bevel cleaned up in a couple minutes.

The way I see it, you can cut the grass with a lawnmower or a weed eater and how much grass there is to cut and how hard it will be to cut with each tool, respectively, is what drives my choice regarding which tool is right for the job.

In it's essence, honing is a very, very simple activity. Abrade both sides of the edge into a bevel that meets at clean, sharp edge. Then refine the edge.

That's it.

Keeping that in mind makes it a little easier to decide what tool to apply for what stage of the work you're doing. There comes a point where the sharpness is limited by the structure of the steel and when you've pushed that envelope, everything beyond that is just grinding away steel. The only real mystery in honing is choosing the right hone for the task and knowing how to tell when you've gotten all you can get out of it, at which point you either move up to a finer finishing technique or hone - or you stop.

That's the confession of a hone-a-holic that's been obsessed with getting steel as sharp as it can possibly get for over 40 years.

All roads lead to Rome. The problem is take road one and you get there in style and take road two and by the time you get there you need a new set of tires, wheels and shocks. I'm with Glen less is more and I would rather take a little more time and remove as little metal than I have to.

I pretty much agree with everyone else. Depending on the work that needs done I don't mind getting aggressive at the bevel setting stage but after that its just different polishing tasks at increasingly higher grits and requires a more gentle touch. Less work and steel abrasion will give you more.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I'm with Glen less is more and I would rather take a little more time and remove as little metal than I have to.

I'm with Glen on that, too. Always remove as little metal as is necessary to get the job done. Sometimes it's a little. Sometimes a lot. Know how much you've got to remove, know which stones are best to remove that much and don't overdo it. This all comes with experience. Keep at it and you'll do fine.