Thread: The little things... "Trick Tip"

Performing a super light one-handed finishing stroke is something that's eluded me for a while, the stroke towards me is fine, but the forward stoke I just couldn't keep the razor smooth and steady, risking a bad stoke lifting the spine and possibly ruining the edge.

So finishing a razor on my J-Nat this morning, I took a serious look at what's going on, and the solution was so simple I had to laugh!

Note the position of the tip index finger on my good stroke towards me:


By blix72 at 2012-03-05

Here's were I mess up:


By blix72 at 2012-03-05

At the forward stroke the tip of my finger is on the edge side of the tang, while on the good stroke it's on the spine side of it, so all I had to do was move the finger to the spine side on the forward stroke.
Like this:


By blix72 at 2012-03-05

And BAM, suddenly my forward stroke was steady as a rock and felt identical to the stroke coming back.

Duh!


Made a world of difference for me.

Originally Posted by Blix

So finishing a razor on my J-Nat this morning

While some of needs to go to work

Funny thing you should come up with this, I had just the same epiphany when I was honing some razors on saturday


One question though, why are you honing the tang?

hey thanks fo this!!! seeing the good vs bad position is a HUGE help!!!

Great stuff Amund.
Thanks for posting

Funny thing, I do the exact opposite
What I mean is, I never rest any finger at the "top" of the tang when the razor is flat on the hone.
I have my thumb and index finger on each side(what is normally top and bottom) of the spine.
Any adjustments to pressure or balance I tend to do with my pinky and ringfinger via the scales/tail of the blade.
The main thing though is to make the strokes as equal as possible, and to that there seems to be many ways that works

UPDATE, with a little PM from Glen, he nudged me in the right direction, at least for me.
I found placing the tip of my finger in the middle of the tang instead helps even more, I can place a tiny bit of edge torque and still keep it steady.

Originally Posted by Zephyr

While some of needs to go to work

Funny thing you should come up with this, I had just the same epiphany when I was honing some razors on saturday


One question though, why are you honing the tang?

Hehe, I was doing this just coming home from a 12 hour night shift...


I don't hone on the tang of course, but to keep the razor steady while holding my camera with my other hand, I had to to that for the sake of the photos

Originally Posted by Birnando

Great stuff Amund.
Thanks for posting

Funny thing, I do the exact opposite
What I mean is, I never rest any finger at the "top" of the tang when the razor is flat on the hone.
I have my thumb and index finger on each side(what is normally top and bottom) of the spine.
Any adjustments to pressure or balance I tend to do with my pinky and ringfinger via the scales/tail of the blade.
The main thing though is to make the strokes as equal as possible, and to that there seems to be many ways that works

Yeah, finding what really works for you is the key, finally I found my way for a nice one-handed stroke.

+ 1 Birnando,

I always torque the razor toward the edge when honing, and away from the spine, so my finger or thumb is always resting on the edge side corner of the tang so I can control that torque... I also use the pinky under the scales but mostly for balance and steadiness...

Oh my , update 2

Trying Birnandos and Glens way with index and thumb on each side of the tang was even better!!!!








Oh well, the intention of this thread still stands, I hope it can help some.

Great thread actually, you got everyone thinking of the little tiny adjustments to an equal and even stroke