Quote Originally Posted by dylandog
I'm trying to follow this about smiles and frowns. I understand what Joe's saying about a hone being more than half the width of the razor developing a frown over time - with the middle of the razor spending more time on the hone than the ends. Stands to reason.

What I don't understand are the techniques for compensating for this. How do you create a smile for a blade? Or is this just an original feature of the blade and you maintain it? What does it mean to "rock" the blade? I am imagining a semi-circular, scything movement, but it seems to me that this would increase, rather than decrease, the amount of time the middle of the blade spends on the hone.

Couldn't you just do an exaggerated x-pattern (think of it as a capital X), minimizing the time the middle of the blade spends on the hone? (Or is this what's meant by "rocking"?)

It's not clear to me how any of this could create the smile. Is that where pressure comes in - putting extra pressure when the ends are on the hone, lightening up in the middle?

Sorry, so many questions...
We have copies of the appropriate parts of the barber manual here so you can check it for yourself. The manual does not recommend rocking or scything or anything like that, which require skills that need to be developed. The newbie is taught to hone (I think it's five passes) the two ends of the razor separately using pressure and then to hone the middle using little pressure or none. In time the smile will develope, and they only suggest you create a slight one.