Thread: The X-stroke: uneven edge wear by design?

IME even though the point end is on the hone throughout the stroke, while the heel leaves the hone fairly early, we unconciously put more pressure on the heel than on the point. This is evident in trying HHT and finding the last 1/2" of the blade, at the point end, frequently needs more attention to equal the sharpness of the rest of the blade. IME anyway. Lifting the shoulder and elbow as you are doing your stroke can help in that area. IIRC I learned about the shoulder from Lynn and the elbow thanks to Disburden.

The thing with the X stroke is that even if your stone is no longer absolutely flat, through hone wear, the edge will generally hit all the way through the stroke. If you had a wide enough stone to just run your back and forth passes in a straight line the low spots in the hone wouldn't make contact with the edge unless the stone was perfectly flat. The X stroke compensates for that. From what I see honemeisters are going to circles now anyhow which is another thread I guess.