Thread: Simple Advice for Honers in Woodworking

Greetings Gentlemen,

Wood workers and serious sharpeners of other tools often are short lived resources at SRP. They come out in the open to share their wisdom to a group that also sharpens, not woodworking tools and knives but the straight razor.

As an aspiring fiddle maker and half baked scientist, I came over as an experimenter, another vague category that stumbled on straight razors as a way to study the perfect universal edge. Some woodworkers(straight razor honers too) a pretty utilitarian about their edges, but fiddle makers tend to be a little more eccentric in that they are carving and finishing their final product with and edge, not sandpaper. The better the edge along with their hands, the better the finish. What better place to enhance my violin making skills than with men sliding deadly sharp edges on their faces?

Let me try to articulate why I think these two groups often part on threads that flame hot enough to take out the temper of the finest Eskilstuna steel. Woodworkers must realize that as talented as they might be, there is no tool that I can think of in violin making or other woodworking disciplines that does not involve cutting into the wood or some other substrate. Maybe analogues of planes could be made to DE shavers, but straight shaving, as one member uses the best way to seperate the unique straight razor edge from other edges is term “face factor”. Much is asked and still debatable as to what makes the face factor, we will save that for another thread(s).

This is what the woodworker must understand, is that the straight shaving tool is unique and that the ultimate edge in woodwork will not magically lift off whiskers and leave the face without irritation and truly be worked within the artistic strokes of a straight shave. I came to this conclusion after more year of experimentation with woodworking type bevels and applying that approach to razor edges. The better my shaving techniques got, the more I was beginning to realize that the edges I was making were not keeping up with my advancing shaving skills. I compensated by keeping shaving angles very low and managed to get smooth shaves, but lose tract of thought for just a second and you get a nick.

There are many honing progressions presented at SRP using all kinds of stones, both artificial and synthetic that will give you a soothing and smooth shave if you stay with it and give it a chance. The Arts of Straight Shaving and Honing the Straight Razor are truly unique and to be enjoyed by as many as possible. I don’t claim to be an expert and know which progression works the best but I am sure anyone you care to try will work to some degree or another.

Don’t get caught in your own woodworking paradigms without trying to find out what they are doing different. The rewards are too great to walk away or get tossed out, and never have the true pleasure of straight razor shave.

It took me a long time to give up on my old tried and true methods so in some ways I feel like newbie but this newbie is getting a better shave and owe much to the gentlemen at SRP.

Michael Carufe

Nicely written Michael, what more can I say...

Well done but putting spaces in between text every so often makes for easier reading. Hitting the enter (return) key will drop the text for the next line down. Just IMHO.

Thanks for the nice post Michael,

For over 30 years i've been sharpening *almost* anything that can be sharpened: Work knives, kitchen knives, axes, drill and router bits, straight and curved chisels, plane blades, and for about last 3 years, straight razors as well.
My wife says it's a serious disease: as soon as i see something that is dull, i start moaning and then vanish into my garage and don't come out until that same thing is sharpened. There were times that this got really bad: i wanted to do most of my sharpening with hand stones only. Luckily nowadays i use them with kitchen knives and razors and the rest of my sharpening i do with my good water grinder.

Now seriously: I cannot say if my experience in sharpening did help me when i started honing straight razors as almost every tool has a bit different blade angle and nature when sharp. You just have to know what you are aiming at.
I somewhat knew how steel 'behaves' when i started with straights and that was an advantage of course. There are various tests when sharpening things.
I usually touch the edge with my left thumb. I do not know it is has a muscle (or thumb) memory but i've learned to 'read' the blade a little ( making still mistakes every now and then). Then there's final tests: with chisels i know that hey are ready to go when they cut end grain easily, and straight razor is ready when it shaves smoothly. No matter what my thumb says.

Sharpening things, by itself, is interesting and relaxing, sort of Zen.
However that doesn't mean that person without previous experience in sharpening could not became an excellent razor sharpener. It is up to person, and his will to practice and learn.

Good post! I made most of my gains in honing straight razors when I threw out all my concerns for sharpness and focused entirely on shaping and smoothing the bevel that already existed.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Well done but putting spaces in between text every so often makes for easier reading. Hitting the enter (return) key will drop the text for the next line down. Just IMHO.

Jimmy,

Good point - even tho' I read the post after the editing. I guess this is one among many reasons they made you a moderator. Hey, are the challenges of moderating anything like walking high steel?

I had a friend, I was told has since shuffled off this mortal coil, who was an iron worker and who worked on all the 50+ floors of the IDS Center in Minneapolis. I asked him once how far he could move a hole with his sleever - he said about half a diameter. Who'd a guess'd it: plastic steel

I have concerns with step ladders

Originally Posted by Bruce

Jimmy,

Good point - even tho' I read the post after the editing. I guess this is one among many reasons they made you a moderator. Hey, are the challenges of moderating anything like walking high steel?

I had a friend, I was told has since shuffled off this mortal coil, who was an iron worker and who worked on all the 50+ floors of the IDS Center in Minneapolis. I asked him once how far he could move a hole with his sleever - he said about half a diameter. Who'd a guess'd it: plastic steel

I have concerns with step ladders

If you can get the point of that spud or that bar in there you can move most of them, before they're cut loose anyway. Afterwards it might take a barrel pin and an 8 pound beater or if it is bad enough a bridge reamer. BTW, still have my tools and my bar was made by Ottowana Tool Co in Ottowana, MN. Best one you could get back in those days.

What did you give up; the double bevel, the 30k? How long have you been in pursuit?

I like to know a bit about what is going on at the crystalline level so I have studied that. All I have is an RS scope so I do not consider myself a scientist of steel edges.

So other than the fact that I really like Carbon steel edged tools and using a straight razor seems perfectly normal to me(even though I was afraid to start for a long time) I wanted to know what my sharpening stones were doing how long it took and what if it were used too much etc. the face told me lots.

I go by feel. The feel of the tool on stone and the feel of the tool in work.

This is an excellent post.

But more importantly, my grandfather played the fiddle, but no one in my family picked it up... Your post made me think about that again. How much would one of your fiddles cost (I need to find a guy to teach me)

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Nicely written Michael, what more can I say...

Thank You Glen. You have already said before in different places. I just wanted to put it in a way that other sharpeners could see in one spot to avoid a fairly common misunderstanding.