Straight Razor Geeks Honing Knives

[Suhrim21]

I think it's weird that I can freehand any knife I have touched. When it comes to razors, which should be easier, it took me almost a year to get where i can shave, for the most part, comfortably. With a razor you just lay it flat on the stone, but with a knife you have to manually hold the angle. I dont understand why it took so long to learn to hone straights when honing knives is simple for me. I hone pocket knives and what I would call utility knives on the work sharp multi tool sharpener. This thing, and it works rather well. 2 diamond plates and 2 ceramic rods and a leather strop.

Work Sharp Guided Field Sharpener for Knives Diamond Ceramic Leather WSGFS221 | eBay

2 Diamond Plates - 2 Ceramic Rods - 1 Leather Strop. It is by far the best manual, portable sharpener I have ever used…. I especially like the versatility of it. 1 Leather Strop – conditioned with a micro-abrasive to finish your blades to a razor-sharp edge.

www.ebay.com

For kitchen knives I have a cheap set of Bokashi Japanese knives. I got these as the steel is great. 67 layer san mai damascus with VG-10 core. I knew I would mess up the first Japanese knives while learning to hone. Currently I use the same stones as I use for my razors but I am working on a separate set for kitchen knives. 1k Shapton followed by 3k, 5k, 8k Naniwa stones. I did have a big bench JNAT but sold it when I needed money sometime around the end of last year. I am looking for another stone like that. It was inexpensive and while not high end it did give a shavable finish on a couple straights. I also didn't know how to use JNATs when i had that. It was nice for my kitchen knives and wasnt expensive so i loved it. To this day i regret selling it.

 

[Steve56]

I hear ya @Suhrim21 - Razors aren’t harder to hone than knives, they’re different.

When a knife bevel isn’t developing like it should or the stone isn’t cutting well, the knife solution is to push harder. That doesn’t work on straights. If the razor bevel isn’t developing properly, many times you need to use less pressure, not more. If the stone isn’t cutting fast enough you can’t push harder, you have to use a coarser/faster stone. Back when I started honing razors, coming from Japanese knives, I wondered why razor honers had all these coarse stones. That’s why, you can’t push harder on a razor, you can on a knife.

You can certainly push harder on a 1/4 hollow or near wedge than you can on a full hollow, but razors in general just don’t respond well to knife pressure. I’ve seen many hollow ground razors that have been honed with so much pressure that the blade flexed and the hone scratched the metal above the bevel - that’s fairly common.

So once you learn that razors aren’t knifes and that almost everything about razor honing is bass ackwards from knives, you’ll do just fine.

I’m using Naniwa Super Stones on knives up to the finisher which is a jnat of some sort. I reserve the Shapton Glass for razors, though I do use the HR (high Rockwell) stones on wear-resistant knife steel like SLD, etc, a Shapton HR is about the only synth that cuts that kind of steel well. Some jnats will, but some won’t.

 

[Suhrim21]

I hear ya @Suhrim21 - Razors aren’t harder to hone than knives, they’re different.

When a knife bevel isn’t developing like it should or the stone isn’t cutting well, the knife solution is to push harder. That doesn’t work on straights. If the razor bevel isn’t developing properly, many times you need to use less pressure, not more. If the stone isn’t cutting fast enough you can’t push harder, you have to use a coarser/faster stone. Back when I started honing razors, coming from Japanese knives, I wondered why razor honers had all these coarse stones. That’s why, you can’t push harder on a razor, you can on a knife.

You can certainly push harder on a 1/4 hollow or near wedge than you can on a full hollow, but razors in general just don’t respond well to knife pressure. I’ve seen many hollow ground razors that have been honed with so much pressure that the blade flexed and the hone scratched the metal above the bevel - that’s fairly common.

So once you learn that razors aren’t knifes and that almost everything about razor honing is bass ackwards from knives, you’ll do just fine.

I’m using Naniwa Super Stones on knives up to the finisher which is a jnat of some sort. I reserve the Shapton Glass for razors, though I do use the HR (high Rockwell) stones on wear-resistant knife steel like SLD, etc, a Shapton HR is about the only synth that cuts that kind of steel well. Some jnats will, but some won’t.

Yeah I am definitely learning razors are bass ackwords. I am starting to get decent edges now on NOS razors, but normally those are simple and dont even require a bevel set/reset.

I am starting to get good edges on a couple of non NOS razors. I know with time and practice my edges will improve. Honing will improve as well. I am loving the Naniwa stones and will probably stick with Naniwa for razors. I am still looking for the finisher for razors that I can use and get great edges on. I've gotten 1 razor to have a decent edge on a jnat. But that is only one.

 

[buca3152]

Spydie para 3 in s110v on the fly setup. 325 dmt card and venez diamond bonded 1200. (Polishes much higher than 2k)

 

[Gamma]

Troublesome old Kabar. Needs more work, presently it's at about the 75% mark and it might stay there for a while. It is serviceable and I don't want to grind more off this old duck than I need to.

 

[Dave Sl8r]

Neighbor called me up, ask me to meet him at the fence, then ask if I could sharpen this Pakistani piece of poo for him.

1) Progression starts with acetone, as with every blade, even more so with this one, to clean the cooties off before I even think about touching it.

2) A claw hammer, use the claw to try and bend the tip somewhat back in the shape, before hammering it flat. Less steel to remove.

3) The sharpie

4) A bastard file, and half round ceramic file

5) 10”Extra Course DMT220, Flip it over to the other side for the 325 course.

7)Ran a few swipes over an Atoma 400 to remove the deep striations.

6)Throw it on the fine 10”DMT 600.

7)Finish it off with a well worn 8 “ DMT 600, probably closer to 900-1000 grit.



Called him up about an hour later, told him to meet me at the fence to get his Rambo knife. Showed him it would shave hair off my arm, told him to be careful, it’s sharp! Handed it over to him, and no sooner then I could say whoa! He ran his thumb down the blade about an inch. The idiot stood there holding his thumb tight with his index finger while blood was dripping out of his hand. I told him he needed to go take care of that, and he replied “I didn’t think you’d make it that sharp.”

Oh well.

 

[SliceOfLife]

I'm surprised you got it sharp enough to cut anything harder than warm jello. I've had several friends ask me to hone up their "Sheffield" pocket knives and the reason is usually the same, bent tip. Get them and 99.99% of the time it's a pakistan or chinese Piece of Doodypoopoo with "Sheffield" laser printed on the side that doesn't take the edge I could put on a ground down dollar store butterknife. I put them down into the sidewalk and drag until the bent tip is gone and then reshape and leave them with whatever I'm grinding on because refinement isn't really a thing on Pakistan steel.

But yeah, 600-1000 is about where they seem to manage. Any higher and you might as well be honing a herring.

 

[global_dev]

Piece of Doodypoopoo

Not just one reference, but 3times strength!! Love it.

 

[SliceOfLife]

The acronym I initially used is word filtered so I got creative.

 

[global_dev]

I like it much better than RSO/KSO

 

[buca3152]

Those types of knives can be sharpened easily using a paper wheel or a belt sander followed by some white compound on a leather belt. I did a few paring knives for a neighbor recently. You can't raise a bur on some of them freehand. And if you do sometimes it takes forever to remove.

 

[5whiskey]

Pakistani doodypoopoo lol. It’s a fair term to describe their blades though. I’ve never tried to sharpen them that I know of, but I sharpened plenty of cheap Chinese knives back in the 90’s. The Chinese have generally improved their blades a good bit since then. I still prefer western steels.

 

[SliceOfLife]

I do recall one member here claimed he got a Pakistan razor shaving using pastes. Somehow the steel survives pasted stropping a little better than honing. I doubt the edge would ever survive long enough to be useful, though.


China definitely makes good blades now... but that doesn't mean they stopped making bad ones... you have to be careful which blade from China you buy, but I've gotten great knives from China for absurd prices... good enough blades I have trouble recommending buying a Wustof or Henckels when there's a Chinese blade 90% as good for 20% the price... but there's also a Chinese blade 0% as good for 19% the price, so you need to be careful.

I have yet to see a good blade come out of Pakistan... so I'd say 100% avoid any steel from Pakistan.

 

[LJS]

I have trouble recommending buying a Wustof or Henckels when there's a Chinese blade 90% as good for 20% the price...

What knives are those please? Not like I need more :-O

 

[SliceOfLife]

There's a slew of good quality chinese sets on amazon. I've only tried a few, but in general, they're quite good. Some claim to be hand-forged or quote impressive hardness ratings... but I can't speak for the truth in that. In general I skim through the reviews to find the occasional ones from cooks that compare it directly to their traditional knives and point out similarities and differences. If I can find a few good reviews along those lines, I give them a try. Haven't gotten a "bad" knife yet, and I've picked up a few to give to friends and family who don't really need a $300 set of knives.

Truth is most home cooks are just fine with a Chicago Cutlery or similar. And the Chinese brands are gradually moving from that to offer lines closer to what you get from the likes of Henckels and Shun. Meanwhile those big brands are adding more cheap lines under their name (I can't even count how many henckels lines there are now) so that buying from them can be as much of a gamble as buying from a no-name brand... unless you are familiar with their lines. I've had people ask me which I would recommend and send me links to a couple $100-200 Henckels or similar sets that I look into and find they're no better than what I could get at walmart for $40. These "low-high" end knives are really a ripoff, in contrast the "high-low" end knives, while you have to do some research into the reviews, can be very good.

 

[Bowmaker]

Been playing around with this bunka in Aogami super. I seem to prefer it really sharp rather than a toothy edge. It will slice a paper towel pretty clean but I feel like it's just not quite there. Perhaps I need a big JNAT to compare? Pretty sure I do...

 

[SliceOfLife]

You're finishing on a trans ark?

Ultra-hard steel on an ultra-hard stone. Definitely a high skill floor (and ceiling) to get the max there. I'll often use a charnley vs an Ark with my japanese knives as they always feel a bit more grippy and muddy to me under the blade and I can have a little more slop and get away with it. Sure the edge isn't quite as insanely polished, but I can still window-pane just about anything put in front of me... so what am I missing?


I personally haven't found any Jnat that really sings to me for knives, but that's probably because I've never spent enough to get a really top quality jnat stone in a size that's BIG enough I will like it for knives.

 

[Bowmaker]

My knife stones are all arks, at least in that class of grit or finish. I have done fine with them even in some steels that some folks say that they won't sharpen (VG-10) but this knife in SA steel, it's obviously struggling with to get it's max. Noticed the same thing with a couple of razors.

I just tried the knife on a little JNAT that I use hand held and the edge noticeably improved but the stone is so small and prone to rocking that it wasn't much fun and I quit before long.

 

[Bowmaker]

Same knife on the biggest coti I have 1 1/2 x 5 1/2. It was easy and it cut fast too.

 

[Bowmaker]

I was so impressed with the Coticule that I purchased a 2 x 8 for knifes. A little larger would be better but it's big enough.
I don't see much information available on natural stones vs some of the harder modern steels.