What's new

Why do some people say circles are bad for sharpening?

I see here and there people saying that circlular movements when sharpening are wrong, but haven't seen any clear reason why they say this.
I think I can understand the basis for kitchen knives, that being the teeth should all be the same direction, but for straights that issue is smaller as the grit is finer and the honing on an oil stone, stropping, and steel being ductile should mitigate this? (Please correct me if that is wrong.)
I've seen on plenty of YouTubes and it mentioned here that circles are a normal way of sharpening, so i am trying to find out why some people say they are not.
 
Depends on what stage you’re at and the stones being used. When I personally use circles at the lower grits they actually aren’t very circular at all but rather they look like miniature half-strokes but they’re performed as fast as I can. Now at finer and finer grits I may use a broad elliptical stroke but I usually won’t do that until around 10,000 grit and beyond when I can really drop the pressure.
Now the liability of circles may come from the fact that if you are doing a true circle there is a short period in which the blade is moving perpendicular to the length of the stone. Some have found that may have the potential to knock out small sections of the Apex. This is actually a fairly common problem with Coticule stones that are prone to self slurry.
 
The way I've done it tends to be more oval than circular, but still a round motion rather than straight one direction. Towards the end of each stone I do switch to straight strokes alternating, basically like stropping.
I never "learned" that anywhere it just seemed like something I should do.
When I get to the oil stone I spend may 1/4 of the time doing circles and then the rest x-strokes and then a stropping-like pattern.
I don't know if it's correct, but it passes the tree top test and doesn't hurt when I shave.
 
Depends on what stage you’re at and the stones being used. When I personally use circles at the lower grits they actually aren’t very circular at all but rather they look like miniature half-strokes but they’re performed as fast as I can. Now at finer and finer grits I may use a broad elliptical stroke but I usually won’t do that until around 10,000 grit and beyond when I can really drop the pressure.
Now the liability of circles may come from the fact that if you are doing a true circle there is a short period in which the blade is moving perpendicular to the length of the stone. Some have found that may have the potential to knock out small sections of the Apex. This is actually a fairly common problem with Coticule stones that are prone to self slurry.
As far as the moving perpendicular to the length, if the circles are only done on the lower grit stones, would that effectively mitigate that problem?
 
I don’t use a true circular motion at the lower grits especially with high pressure. I save the broad elliptical techniques for last to feel out my work while finishing.
We all may have certain strokes and techniques that we are reluctant to use. And admittedly in most cases it’s going to be very difficult to demonstrate why these things are a liability in any meaningful way. I just know that with my own personal attempts that I seem to have a better result when I don’t do “true circles” early on in the honing process.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
I have learnt that in SR shaving and honing, there is no right or wrong way to do things. You just do what works best for you.

Millions (billions?) of men and some women around the world have been honing SRs for centuries. Over this time, certain techniques have been developed that work well for most of these men, often without a known physical reason. All they know it it just works best for them.

When starting out, it is best to follow what is generally accepted as "best practice". Later, as you perfect doing "best practice", you can try other methods in honing to find out what is right for you. When doing this, it is best to have at least two identical SRs so that you can more correctly compared. Then you must also realise that what works for one type of SR or whetstone may be totally different for another.

How do I know? I have five sets of identical SRs with over 30 SRs in total. Fortunately my budget has limited me to only nine different whetstones.

Welcome to the honing rabbit hole.
 
I use circles quite a bit until the very last stages of honing. I find them extremely useful if you are having trouble in one particular spot on the razor. Lets you concentrate on sections of the razor while honing or correcting a blade.
 
Find the posts you are referring to and ask the person/s who posted that stuff about circles.
No way for anyone here in this thread to know who said what, exactly, or why... Guessing doesn't help.
Always best to go to the source.

As for me, I might use circles for early work, don't like them for finishing work. Reason being that circles leave odd striations goin in directions I don't want them to go in.. I want my polishing to be more finessed than circles allow. I have been around the block with this too many times to count, but for me, I get better finished results (sharpness & smoothness) when I remove the oddball patterns circles leave behind.

It's not a rule, it's not a hill I need to die on. I don't mind or care who hones what way, and it's no never-mind to me if someone likes circles or not... I just don't use them after 1k-ish work. What is right, wrong, best, good, bad, etc - is up to the individual. Never found them to help and usually feel that they hinder. Never saw any gain in speed or efficiency from using them either. But if someone likes honing that way, and they get the results they want, it's all good.

For early work, on basket-case blades, I might use circles, mixed in with half strokes and snake strokes to combat fatigue and boredom. Simpler for me though to just rely on x strokes, or rolling x strokes.

Best thing for me to do with all of this what is or is not good stuff was/is to ignore the chatter and just try stuff, see what I like, see what I do best with, and constantly try and retry stuff to see if things change, or not....
 
Circles are good. So are ellipses, x-strokes, half strokes and rolling x-strokes.

We're all different. Play with the different strokes and find what works for you, and what works for solving different problems.

I often start with circles and then move on the x-strokes. I also like to start with very light pressure to prime the pump and get a feel for the blade on the stone before adding more pressure.

After watching classic Coticule videos from Bart Torfs and Gary Haywood, I have started to play with half strokes and rather like them.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Wid

Ravenonrock

I shaved the pig
I’m pretty green when it comes to honing, but I like it and do it regularly. I haven't found circles to be a problem, I like it to get things going off the start and break things up. I try what more experienced guys do and then decide if it works for me or not. Circles are ok.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Wid
Use what works for you. As said it depends on what you are trying to achieve.

If a technique makes sense, try it. Don’t take anybody’s word, try it, then decide.

If doing half laps try a bit of a reverse J or Nike swoosh stroke, so you end with a slight curve. This will prevent honing a frown, you do not need much of a curve just about a ¼ inch, to hone towards a smile. If you start with the toe near the edge, you end about a ¼ to ½ inch from the edge.

What ever stroke I use, I finish on X strokes.

There are No Rules
 

Legion

Staff member
I think one reason some might not want to use circles it that for half of the circle the spine leads the edge, which could contribute to a wire edge. Does it for sure? Dunno, but it might.
 
I don't think that it's a question of circles being "bad" per se.

Using circles as opposed to straight/X strokes may take more practice to keep the blade flat on the hone.
A beginner could possibly damage a few razors while perfecting the circle stroke.

From my understanding, using circles is a way of quickly removing material because the direction of the striations caused by the abrasive in the hone keeps changing.

This is why some people use circles in the early stages in cases where a lot of material needs to be removed.

You can also end up with striations on the edge that run parallal to the apex under certain circumstances.

Using X-strokes after circles can remove these, but some could remain.

Some people don't mind that and some people may possibly have such fine cutting hones that are capable of obliterating all traces of such things and are capable of ensuring that there is absolutely no contamination of the honing surface by stray abrasive particles that are larger than the finest finish.
But, there are those who don't like it.

It's good to experiment and find what works for you, but I have been pondering statements like this while looking at the scratch patterns on my edge after using circles ( and edges honed by others ):
I get better finished results (sharpness & smoothness) when I remove the oddball patterns circles leave behind.

Maybe one day I will have experimented enough and come to a different conclusion, but for now I will be doing more X-strokes to get rid of those striations.

In the end, your face will tell you whether things on your edge that you can't see with the naked eye matter or not.
 
I think one reason some might not want to use circles it that for half of the circle the spine leads the edge, which could contribute to a wire edge. Does it for sure? Dunno, but it might.

I think you are right. You are coming at the edge in different directions in a continuum and, if your blade is wider than the stone, you are overlapping the sections without forming a line.
 
So, it depends on what you are trying to achieve. When I use circles, it is in first stage of bevel setting, where the goal is to flatten the bevel in the correct angle. I am not concerned about the edge development or stria pattern. Just removing material.

Once the bevels are flat-ish, then I switch to half laps to refine the stria pattern and begin to build/straighten the edge. I finish on X laps after jointing the edge to make it straight, Once the bevels are flat, getting them to meet is a matter of a handful of laps on a clean, no slurry, freshly lapped stone. Now the goal is all about the edge, any random stria should have been removed long ago and the bevels dead flat.

If you create random stria on a given stone and cannot remove them easily on the same stone, you are doing something wrong.

The goal of bevel setting is to, 1. Get the bevels flat, 2. Get the bevels in the correct plane, 3. Get the bevels to meet in at straight edge fully.

You are not necessarily trying to achieve all three goals with each honing stroke.
 
In the end, your face will tell you whether things on your edge that you can't see with the naked eye matter or not.

I've always relied on stone feedback and the shave to tell me what's what. Visuals are there for the sake of understanding why I feel what I feel, not to tell me what I feel.

There's a video where someone (Matt?) was getting significant rogue gouges in his bevels by doing circles on a Coticule.
I interpret that as - doing circles on that stone isn't a good idea.
In a shaving forum, it might turn into - circles are death to edges.

Try stuff, see what works. Do stuff that works, stop doing stuff that doesn't.
 
For me I don't like them because they throw in variables by reducing fine control. Another thing is they may be fast at metal removal out of the gate but then you have to spend the time deleting the mess they leave in their wake.
 
I tend to mostly use circles when trying to fix an issue that dominates one portion of one side of the bevel, such as trying to a burr to form at the toe of a smiling wedge.
 
Top Bottom