The right way to flip a razor on a hone

One of the benefits of the internet and forums like SRP is the incredible wealth of information available. When I started honing and shaving straights, there was no SRP, no internet video… hell there was no internet.

I just watched GSSix-gun’s “Chinese one hone video”. Six-gun made a comment about flipping the razor on the stone the “wrong way”, how it is a habit he developed, but that new honers should learn the “right way”. My question is, which is really the right way? Which is the safest, especially to a new honer that has not yet developed the muscle memory to be safe on auto-pilot that tasks like honing seem to generate?

I have observed in teaching new honers, it is easier to use two hands on the razor to keep the razor on the hone. If the honer uses two hands and flips the razor, spine on the hone, there is a greater danger of cutting the supporting hand. The hand is near the stone and right at the edge of the razor when it flips.

If you flip edge side down, you run the risk of tapping the edge on the stone, ruining your work and damaging the edge, but both hands and razor come up off the stone naturally to make the flip. The supporting hand is farther away from the edge.

So which is "right", which is the safest?

I was taught by my barber whom I bought my first razor and supplies from, given a lesson at the shop then really learned on my own, came back asked a lot of questions and developed my own style. Probably how Six-gun and a lot of you learned. I flip the razor edge down naturally. I consciously have to think about flipping spine down.

I teach flipping spine down, but each time I see a shaky unskilled hand near the edge when it flips, I have that feeling they are going to slice themselves, especially when they are trying to go faster, and they all do.

So which is the “Right Way”, a potential bad cut or a chipped edge?

Glen, thanks for the Chinese One Hone Video, lots of good information… again.

There is the right way, the wrong way..... and then there is my way. I flip it opposite the way I strop IIRC. Like the centipede who was asked by the caterpillar... how do you walk with all those legs ?..... if I have to think about it I can't do it. :p

The "Right" way hehehe

Honestly is the one that prevents you from slamming the edge into the stone :p

If you really watch on those vids if I am using 2 hands I flip it "wrong" and if I am using 1 hand I flip it "right"

-But-

As one of our Australian brothers once commented on a thread where someone mentioned it "Why not ask Glen how many edges he has nicked on a hone instead" :p

In the vids I mention it to help you guys figure it out for yourself instead of blindly following my lead...


Thanks for letting me know the vids helped you out :)

I was taught by a barber and he taught me to lift the razor completely off the stone(or strop) and do the flip. I've been told that its bad habit to do it that way, but I still do it.:)

I'm still new to honing, but making progress I think. From the beginning I've flipped the razor over on its spine: although that didn't feel natural at first, I was sure I'd clonk the cutting edge on the hone if I did it the other way.

About one hand or two, I started using two hands because I simply couldn't keep the blade flat on the hone with only one. (I hone slowly, and didn't cut my blade-hand because I was careful to move it out of harm's way during the flip. Unlike with stropping, it's never seemed natural to try to go faster on the hone. If anything, I'm slowing down.) Every now and then, I'd try using just one hand, and after a while I realized that my right hand had learned to hold the blade properly and it's now easier to use one hand than two. I think of the other hand as being like those training wheels on a bike - now my right hand has been trained to get the balance right, I don't need the left hand keeping the toe on the stone.

I too have really benefited from the videos - thanks to Lynn and gssixgun, the effort you put in to helping us newbies is much appreciated. :)

Regardless of its size, weight, or thickness, I always hold the hone in my left hand. With a thin hone this means laying my hand flat and resting the hone on it, no grip of any sort. So I'm honing one-handed, but because I've got some play in how I support the hone, I can coordinate to maintain even pressure across the whole blade. That even pressure is why I choose to hold the hone--I find it an easier solution than all the adjustments necessary when the hone is stationary on a counter or table. There's more freedom of motion in my left wrist than there is in my right elbow. It also keeps me especially mindful of the process, since it'd be fairly easy to plane off some of my left hand.

For the flip, I never turn the blade with the edge toward the stone. Always the spine. But I do lift the spine, or else I'd scratch it as I slid the blade over from the tail of one X-stroke to the head of the next. When I land the blade again, it's spine first then I roll the edge back down to the hone.

This is the right way for me, but that's all the assertion I'll make about it.

As to technique, I flip a razor on a hone the same way I flip one on a strop, no different.

Just a thought.

I don't think damage to self or razor is governed by how you flip the razor but how tired or rushed you are.
That said you cannot flip a kamisori over its edge when it is well stuck to the stone without risk of damage.