Thread: Request for a Honing Pressure Video.

While watching one of Lynn's videos I had an idea. I have seen many honing videos from different honers, and every single video talks about the amount of pressure to use while honing. Unfortunately, none of the videos I have seen have explained this well. Generally the honer's will tell you to use "moderate" or "no" pressure. I feel as though pressure is something very important, but difficult to explain. I can follow along and match the number of strokes, but I never get the same results as the the honer.

I really think this would benefit new honers, such as myself, to have a video dedicated to the fine art of pressure. The hone could be placed on a scale, and zeroed out. The pressure exerted on the scale could be edited into the video. Viewers would be able to see how much pressure to use for each stroke. The honer could go farther by explaining where on the razor pressure is exerted.

A video like this would give viewers a quantifiable amount of pressure. Viewers could place their own hone on a scale and feel exactly what the proper pressure should feel like.

Thank you
Victor

This has come up a couple of times. I can't remember what thread it was in, but a longtime honer took something the size of a cork or bottle cap and balanced their hone on it. Too much pressure would knock the hone off the fulcrum.

I think this new and timely post might help you:

http://straightrazorpalace.com/showthread.php?p=936871

Just what I was thinking yesterday
If a couple of guys would try the same as I, it would be possible to get the average hone pressure for some of the most used strokes.
Of course it would be great if some of the resident honemeisters would try, but if ten, or even five guys post their results we would probably have a good average.

The pressure issue is really important when you get to your finisher. I use a vintage Thuringian, I will balance it on a couple of fingers and in this way should too much pressure be applied I will tip the stone.

Warning: I do this over the desk about 6 inches from the surface with a soft towel in place to catch the stone just in case I lose it. Dont do it standing up in the kitchen where the stone has a 3-4 foot fall onto the floor, unless you wish to get into the slurry stone market.

IMO the quantification of pressure is a red herring. I know, I know, it surely seems like it would be awesome to know that this guy uses that much pressure when he does this, and that much pressure when he does that.

Problem is, what this or that guy is actually doing is using his or her experience and making on the fly decisions about the pressure applied at each and every step of the process. You cannot capture that with "Use xxxx pressure on the xx K stone, and yyyy pressure on the yy K stone" recipes, even if those recipes are good - the variations and minutia are too great.

The mechanics of honing is only maybe 50% of the task. Developing the experience, knowledge, strategy, confidence, imagination, and sheer art-form of honing is a much longer process that cannot be easily taught - you have to gain that yourself. That is why I am always a bit dubious when I read about a 6-month self-proclaimed "honemeister" - how much experience can you really get in that time?

Anyway, please excuse a grumpy middle-aged man his early morning rant.

James.

I too believe that the amount of pressure used is one of the less important factors. In fact, being the minimalist KISS person I think I am, I think there is only one rule:

Don't deform the blade!


The above rule applies primarily to hollow ground razors that bend under pressure. Beyond that, just hone the blade.

As an aside, everything you do to the blade on the lower hones, is largely if not entirely turned into fine metal shavings by the time you get to the last few hones. So, whether you use pressure or not on the lower hones, I don't think there is much right or wrong you can do.

On the last hone, I recommend finishing with lighter pressure. Even that, if not done, will not keep you from achieving a nice shaving edge in my opinion.

Finally, however well you do, let's assume you use perfect pressure and create the perfect edge, that is not primarily what you will shave with. Your perfect edge will be what you shave with for about a shave or two. After that, you are shaving with a stropped edge. And, you will shave with the stropped edge many more shaves than the "perfect" edge right off the hone/strop.

There are so many reasons why I think you should just hone, and not worry about pressure. Sure, pressure is important, and is a significant factor in honing. But, it isn't necessary to worry about pressure in order to achieve basic shave readiness.

(This is like learning to bat a baseball. Not opening up too quick, swinging with your wrists, standing deep in the box are all things that are important. But, you don't have to swing a bat like Albert Pujols to hit a baseball and have fun.)

Originally Posted by Jimbo

IMO opinion the quantification of pressure is a red herring. I know, I know, it surely seems like it would be awesome to know that this guy uses that much pressure when he does this, and that much pressure when he does that.

Problem is, what this or that guy is actually doing is using his or her experience and making on the fly decisions about the pressure applied at each and every step of the process. You cannot capture that with "Use xxxx pressure on the xx K stone, and yyyy pressure on the yy K stone" recipes, even if those recipes are good - the variations and minutia are too great.

The mechanics of honing is only maybe 50% of the task. Developing the experience, knowledge, strategy, confidence, imagination, and sheer art-form of honing is a much longer process that cannot be easily taught - you have to gain that yourself. That is why I am always a bit dubious when I read about a 6-month self-proclaimed "honemeister" - how much experience can you really get in that time?

Anyway, please excuse a grumpy middle-aged man his early morning rant.

James.

I agree with everything in this "rant" of yours. No one should expect the same results as one of the big guns, just because you are able to use the same pressure. Honing is a skill slowly aquired.
The reason I posted in the first place was to pin something solid to the vague "heavy" or "light" stroke in the tutorials.
For me it would be a easy starting point while trying to find out for myself how to get a good edge on my razors.
To be honest I was hoping that someone more experienced than me would do the same experiment, since I am nowhere close to experienced yet.
Enjoy the rest of your morning

Thank you for your responses. nikolasnjerve, It is very funny that you and I had the same thought at the same time. I was thinking about something real time to the video. Then you could see if a single stroke starts out at 100 grams and lightens to 40 grams. The thread nikolasnjerve started gave me some idea of what light is. I wish some of the real experienced honers would give similar data. I was hoping to enhance practice with good mechanics. There is no point in becoming consistent at bad honing.

Unfortunately, I just tried this on a razor from restoration dull, to shave ready, and realized that it is pretty useless, but I tried

First off unless you really qualify every single thing this type of info is going to do more harm than good ie: like Larry pointed out the difference in honing a wedge or heavy blade compared to honing a full hollow that can actually be damaged by excess pressure...

As to the actual pressure I was watching the reading and quickly realized that even averaging them out was probably not a help but rather a hinderence...

The pressure was highly variable as I was feeling through each stroke.. The only time it was pretty consistent was

1st set of 20 circles on the 1k Chosera heavy pressure bevel setting 1/2 hollow 5/8 Torrey was pretty dead on, and the 2nd set of 20 circles same as above but med pressure

Although it was consistent, I would be hesitant to qualify it for other razors and other stones as I was still "feeling the edge"

The finishing stokes on the Thuringen got very consistent also

Pigtail Strokes as I introduced the razor to the hone, and the last 20 finishing out to clear water...

Again I would be very hesitant to qualify these numbers for another stone or razor

Basically, I left the actual numbers out of this post as I honestly feel they will do more harm than good... much like in the past we never disclosed laps numbers on SRP until people started doing the vids...


I also feel that the honer will trend to the lighter side of the pressure curve, as they want low numbers too look cool... Another downside IMHO to the bevel setting stage...