ok wow. i realized i havent been using torque before in setting my bevels and polishing. to me torque feels like your trying to push through the stone instead of on the stone with much of your wrist and a little of your forearm. i did that to my wedge razor and then stropped it using torque also only flipping the blade while it is moving and i got it to easily tree top the hairs on my legs all up and down the blade. thats why it was taking me so long to set abevel! i was basically just riunning the blade against the stone with either little or no torque and just pushing the razor into the stone. if it shaves as comfortably as i think it will. i may just go back and re do my other razors like this and see how they turn out!! wow i didnt know torque could make such a difference in the end results of honing!
great rsults honing with torque!
- Thread starter Staggers and Jags
- Start date
Yup. And that's just one part of a more general phenomenon: it really matters where you apply pressure, even with where all your digits are, what your wrist is doing, everything. My knife sharpening got a lot better when I moved my thumb a small distance to just behind the edge (and same for the forefinger on any stroke in which the edge is facing away from me). Less than 1/2" of position change, but it was the difference between being able to find the bevel with consistency, and only finding it on a good day.
Knife sharpeners often start out thinking razors will be a breeze. There's a built-in angle guide? Piece of cake. But it turns out that having all that steel in contact with the stone places a crucial responsibility on the honer: to apply pressure appropriately, to emphasize the contact in one place or another, not just lay it flat and flail. Most people's default way of gripping a razor for honing puts the pressure emphasis on the spine. Not by a lot, but it doesn't take a lot. Torqueing substitutes a desirable bias for this default bias. Again, it's a subtle change, but a crucial one -- because the difference between honing at the apex, and honing 0.1mm behind the apex, is all the difference in the world.
Knife sharpeners often start out thinking razors will be a breeze. There's a built-in angle guide? Piece of cake. But it turns out that having all that steel in contact with the stone places a crucial responsibility on the honer: to apply pressure appropriately, to emphasize the contact in one place or another, not just lay it flat and flail. Most people's default way of gripping a razor for honing puts the pressure emphasis on the spine. Not by a lot, but it doesn't take a lot. Torqueing substitutes a desirable bias for this default bias. Again, it's a subtle change, but a crucial one -- because the difference between honing at the apex, and honing 0.1mm behind the apex, is all the difference in the world.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
Balancing contact pressure between spine and edge is key. It may come natural or it might not. I never really even thought about it, it just worked out that way. Others have to concentrate on it.
Don't overdo it. To overdo it is no better than underdoing it. Just remember, both edge and spine need adequate contact and the balance must be consistent. Also remember that the edge, as it develops, gets very flexible, and too much pressure on the edge when the bevel is set or nearly so, will form a wire edge as the edge is deflected upwards and honing pressure concentrates behind the edge instead of across the bevel. Also, excessive deliberate torque can sometimes cause a nose dive that trashes an edge in an instant.
Don't overdo it. To overdo it is no better than underdoing it. Just remember, both edge and spine need adequate contact and the balance must be consistent. Also remember that the edge, as it develops, gets very flexible, and too much pressure on the edge when the bevel is set or nearly so, will form a wire edge as the edge is deflected upwards and honing pressure concentrates behind the edge instead of across the bevel. Also, excessive deliberate torque can sometimes cause a nose dive that trashes an edge in an instant.
I found the same. I wasn't getting anywhere by just rubbing the razors flat on the stone, and applying a bit of torque towards the edge worked much better for me. I still back off on the torque for the last few (light) passes to make sure I'm not leaving a burr before I move to the next grit.
I'm curious, if not the spine, where is the torque being applied if not to the spine as mentioned, and how are the fingers gripping the shank during the pass and flip?
I am having trouble understanding the question. The torque being applied is a rotational force applied with your fingers that are holding the tang, with the axis of rotation through the center of the tang, and the direction of the rotational force being in the direction of the bevel. This force therefore tends to (gently) lighten the pressure of the spine on the stone, and (gently) increase the pressure of the bevel on the stone.
There are a variety of grips that could be used to accomplish this.
Thanks for the reply. Your last sentence concerning grips is what I am curious about. What grip of the shank are you using during the passes to introduce torque and what is the flip like used this way?
My father-in-law once had trouble starting my old truck. I knew there was a trick to it, but I had to get in the truck and do it before I could tell him what it was. My hands knew, but my brain didn't.
This was like that. I grabbed a razor and a stone, and now I can tell you that I have a finger on top of the tang, and a thumb on the bottom. That makes both torqueing and flipping really straightforward.
Steve56
Ask me about shaving naked!
I do what I believe is the same kind of grip on the tang when stropping. The finger position on the tang effectively holds the edge on the leather, it isn’t a conscious ‘twist’ that’s applied - unless the blade is way out there.
Don't over do it though. You'll end up with wide bevels. That's the best way to get through chips though. A little bit of torque and a steady hand goes a long way.
On the finishing grits, a few spine leading strokes(bevel barely skimming) can help to if you do it right. A good stropping on cloth should snag a wire edge off. Linen is good, my favorite is the flesh side of leather.
Thanks guys. Just to be sure, and excuse my insistence, when you write "a finger on the top of the tang, and the thumb on the bottom," are you referring to a finger on the part of the shank in line with the spine and the thumb corresponding to where the jimps would be at the bottom of the shank? And if such a grip is being used, how to effect the flip without turning the wrist?
This is how I hold it. The thumb initiates the flip and the fingers on the scales stabilize while resetting the grip.
If there was a stone under there, the index finger and thumb would be twisting just enough to bias the pressure toward the edge.
If there was a stone under there, the index finger and thumb would be twisting just enough to bias the pressure toward the edge.
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It's likely that 50 different people will have 50 different grips, or at least 50 different permutations of whatever possible grips could be used.
How any one person achieves 'torque' is irrelevant, really. Person A's hands are not Person B's hands, Person C's stones are not in the same place or position as Person D's are. Different people hold razors different ways.
Pick up a razor and practice it.
The path to success is to focus on what is a relatively simple concept and develop an equally simple execution that fits into the equation. By doing it, the necessary geometry of the action will present itself. It's like learning a rolling stroke. Honestly, it's an intuitive thing once the ball is in motion. Just do it and figure out how to describe it later.
Yeah, maybe the stone, or the wrist, or the fingers, or the hand, or the arm has to move, or become more flexible in the scheme of things. Which should be an expected thing...if nothing changes then nothing changes.
How any one person achieves 'torque' is irrelevant, really. Person A's hands are not Person B's hands, Person C's stones are not in the same place or position as Person D's are. Different people hold razors different ways.
Pick up a razor and practice it.
The path to success is to focus on what is a relatively simple concept and develop an equally simple execution that fits into the equation. By doing it, the necessary geometry of the action will present itself. It's like learning a rolling stroke. Honestly, it's an intuitive thing once the ball is in motion. Just do it and figure out how to describe it later.
Yeah, maybe the stone, or the wrist, or the fingers, or the hand, or the arm has to move, or become more flexible in the scheme of things. Which should be an expected thing...if nothing changes then nothing changes.
That's the same way that came natural to me too. Fingerspitzengefühl!
Thanks, I do appreciate that. But I note that you are shifting from the thumb on the spine during the first pass leading to the thumb on what I would style the bottom of the shank on the return stroke, which is not what I was responding to as described above where the placement of the thumb was stated to remain consistent at the "bottom" the shank. If one is to introduce torque with the thumb towards the leading edge rather than than the spine during both passes, I would think that this would involve a placement of the thumb on the side of the shank (as branded or stamped) biassed towards the edge rather than the spine, involving a slight turn of the wrist during the flip to allow for the thumb to realign itself so as to be biassed towards the edge on the other side of the shank during return stroke as well.
Suffice it to say that I don't have anything figured out. After more than ten years of honing straight razors, I've taken a break for a year or more to scratch my head over things. Hence my interest in this thread and my query as posted above.
@Alum of Potash , I'm just twisting the shank slightly toward the edge regardless of which stroke I'm doing. Like turning a volume knob.
What really got me to understand torque was watching a bunch of @Gamma's videos and listening. The sound on those videos is done well and it is easy to hear how the blade sounds on the stone. Learning to hone is I think less about muscle memory than a kind of negotiation with the subconscious motor systems, trying to work out which story you can tell them to get them to move effectively. In my case that story involved trying to recreate the sound of an effectively honed razor. Of course all razors and stones sound different but keeping the sound in mind immediately led me to try radically increasing the amount of torque. Once I had the right sound I had the right torque and everything else became much easier.
Honing requires balance across many vectors. Muscle memory is integral to the storyline. On it's own, mm is almost useless. Combined with awareness and skills in other sectors, it becomes part of a working system.
