First honing questions

[rhgg2]

Thanks!

I find that the right amount of pressure tends to produce swarf that is easier to rinse off the stone and does not get as deeply embedded in the stone.

Indeed, with the pressure setting I have now swarf builds up thinly and uniformly across the hone (biased to the side where the X stroke points) and is almost all easily removed just by rubbing with fingers alone.

But don’t overthink feeling, or feedback, confirm what you feel on the stone

Indeed! There are a few things I can observe: bevel polish; edge under low magnification; edge straightness. I guess undercut is something about edge straightness and feedback from the stone is telling me about flatness of the bevel planes. If I have my technique down these signs should all kind of arrive at saying I'm done with the stone at around the same time. But right now I don't know that is yet the case so I will trust the things I can see with my eyes. I guess I will know I'm refining my technique successfully if the bevel scratches are removed at around the same time I start feeling friction on the stones.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

Keep in mind that you grind/shape a bevel to get a straight edge. And refine the bevels, polish to straighten the edge further. It is all about the edge.

But you can have smooth shiny bevels and the edge is still chippy not straight or not fully honed.

So, you can feel stiction, and not have a chip free edge. Stiction just tells you that the bevel is as smooth as the stone face, it tells you nothing about the edge. Or another test, can give false information, hair test, undercut or how a stone feels. These test tell you nothing about the whole edge.

Better to hone with both goals in mind. For example, when setting a bevel, you want to grind the bevels flat and in the correct angle. And get the bevels meeting. All 3 things do not happen automatically, and/or not at the same rate. You can have flat bevels and still have a chippy edge.

But once the bevels are flat, it is easy to do a few more lite pressure laps and refine the edge or joint the edge and reset the bevels quickly to a straight edge. The same goes for higher grits where you are refining the bevel face, removing deep stria. Start with enough pressure to remove the deep stria, and finish with light pressure to refine the edge.

The goal is not to feel Stiction or any other tell/test. Look at the bevel and edge and do what they tell you it needs. It takes, what it takes.

This is where magnification pays dividends, more is better. Yes, guys will tell you they only use X magnification and that is all you need. It is all they need, they already know how to hone and what to look for.

You need more to understand what is causing what you see. I use a 60x100 Carson MicroBrite lighted scope. You will learn a lot more about your honing, the more you can’t see what is happening at the edge and understand why you see what you see and how to fix it.

If you cant see a problem, you can’t fix it.

 

[rhgg2]

So, I have another question, about scratch patterns.

Going from one stone to the next in a progression, there is a scratch pattern that obviously changes; you can see this even with the naked eye.

However if I hold the blade at a different angle, so my eyeline is almost parallel with the bevel face, and light it from the side there is a scratch pattern that doesn't seem to change at all regardless of any honing. It matches quite well with the scratch pattern in the hollow of the blade. Is this some kind of inherent pattern caused by the grinding process which can't be honed out? I.e. should I ignore this when determining when to move on?

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

How much magnification are you using? What you see at 10x will be very different from what you see at 60 or 100x.

A finished bevel should be much more refined than a razor belly, unless you are using naturals.

 

[*stefan*]

My guess is this scratch pattern is from wet/dry paper when restoring. Or from lower grit
during bevel set whit higher pressure being used.

Because of the different view( horizontal positioning of blade) this
scratch pattern reflect light similar as the grinding scratch?

If bevel scratch reach the apex, shipping occur easier but if not reaching the apex I wouldn't mind scratches per se.

 

[rhgg2]

Thanks, all. This was at 10x, but some of the scratches were easily visible with the naked eye. Putting the blade through my jnat finisher blasted away all the scratches away so it seems it is likely a technique issue on the Shapton stones. I need to experiment with the low grits a bit more to figure this out.

 

[JPO]

Thanks, all. This was at 10x, but some of the scratches were easily visible with the naked eye. Putting the blade through my jnat finisher blasted away all the scratches away so it seems it is likely a technique issue on the Shapton stones. I need to experiment with the low grits a bit more to figure this out.

If you pull the razor off the edge of the stone and catch the edge a little, you can put some deep scratches on your edge.if this is the case, It helps to chamfer/round off the edges a little every time you lap the stones.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

A common new honer issues is, they believe that their finishing stone is leaving deep scratches on the bevel.

But what happens often is when they transitioned from grinding the bevels flat, (bevel setting), they did not spend enough time on the stone after the bevel setter or use enough pressure to fully remove all the deep stria. The transition stone masked the deep stria with its own stria and when they get to the finisher, the finisher polished away the finer stria, but the deep stria was there the whole time.

Deep stria will usually end in a chip at the edge.

So, ensure that you remove all the deep bevel setting stria with the transition stone, whatever that is.

With Jnats the problem is worst, because they do not leave conventional stria patterns but a hazy Kazumi finish that can hide deep stria well.

Here more magnification will better reveal what is happening on the bevel and edge.

 

[Frank Shaves]

^
This is why you want to finish each stone with very light to no pressure to minimize the depth of the scratches before moving on to the next grit.