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