Thread: What exactly is Feedback?

Hey There

So this is a good question, and one which is going to cause an angle to lose her wings

Ok ...

When I am honing I have an understanding of which hones are going to do what to the razor in my hand. We all know that we move from setting a bevel, to refining the bevel (some call this sharpening), next we move onto polishing the bevel. There are a number of interesting things going on throughout these processes.

Bevel setting -

When we are setting a bevel we are going to remove steel and have the two edges of the blade converge at a small point. When they converge at an acceptable angle, we can shave with the edge. We generally use stones around 1000 grit to bevel set. This stone is going to remove a moderate amount of steel, as such there are going to be certain things you can feel, hear, and see to use as feedback so that you know everything is going well.

First you are going to see steel being removed from the razor. You aren't going to see it happening but you are going to see evidence of it. You will see grey being deposited on your stone, and the lubricant you are using will become darker, and darker as it holds more and more steel. You will be able to see the lubricant moving in front of your razor, it will move more and more uniformly as the bevel becomes set and more uniform in nature. If your stone isn't flat, or the bevel isn't completely in contact with the stone the lubricant won't move in a smooth, wave form along your hone. If it isn't uniform then there is something wrong and you should fix it.

You will be able to hear a small amount of noise, the noise will get smaller and smaller as you go on with the honing, and the bevel becomes set. This is IMO because the surface of the bevel is reflecting the surface of the stone with it's scratch pattern and how "straight"/flat it is.

You will feel some vibration, these vibrations are minimal but important. The less vibration you feel, the closer to having a set bevel you are. Also as the bevel becomes set there will be less resistance along the line of the stone, but as you come to turn/roll the blade over the spine to come back in the opposite direction the set bevel with provide resistance, as it sucks to the stone.

Sharpening -

This is generally very similar to bevel setting with you using less pressure so the feedback becomes less, this is why as you hone more this feedback becomes easier to notice.

Polishing -

For me this feedback is more about the feel of the suction between the razor and the stone, and how the lubricant/slurry looks.
There should be more suction at this stage because the stone is harder (my stones are all natural), and the bevel is much smoother. You need to take care not to allow the edge push into the stone, as the suction could allow you to lift the razor from the stone. If this happens you will feel a horrible scratching in your fingers and you may see it.

My experience of the slurry is that a slurry forms more and more as I polish the blade. This is going to vary depending on who you ask BUT everybody's experiences with this are important (providing they end with an excellent shaver). My slurry get's whiter and whiter as I polish more. This is significant to me because I am done once I can't see the certain colors on my stone. For you, this could be different but you will gain your feedback with experience.

I HATE the following acronym but YMMV. I use it here because your fingers may be less/more sensitive than mine, your eyesight better/worse, and the same with your ears. You will have different hones, may use a different lubricant (as I make my own), and you may or may not have kids screaming at you as you hone lol.

I hope this helps

When you talk feedback in a sound system that is a specific thing and in fact is an engineering term and it can be defined and studied and seen on test instruments and acoustic engineers can quantify that. However with many other things it's just a term with no real definition except in the mind of the individual. With razors it's like that. it's all relative. Ten folks might hone the same razor on the same hone in the same condition and you might get ten descriptions of the feedback they perceive and some may feel nothing at all.

For me feedback is the feel of the razor on the stone.
Different stones can feel different on the same razor.Some stones feel similar on majority of razors, the ones that provide the most consistent feed back are the ones preferred by honers.

For me, feedback in relation to honing, is the result from the first shave of a just honed razor. It tells me all I need to know about the honing of that particular razor.