My second hone ID thread

Do the LWW isn't bevel setter and not a finisher it would fit somewhere in between if I understand you correctly?

It's the only Arkie I have so I don't know what the "traditional" Ark progression would have been.

My current progression is bevel set in a King 800, then to the 4K side of the combo stone. From there I'll go to a Coti and do dilutions (mostly to ensure a good bevel and I like honing so time isn't a factor). Once that's done ill finish on anything from the 8K side of the Norton or one if my two Coti's or the Escher.

Would the LWW fit before the 4K or after if edge refinement was the goal?

It really depends on your technique. I'll be honest. I don't like LWW with razors because even though they leave a great cutting edge (cuts about as well as a Norton 8k edge), they leave a TON of tooth in the edge. Good for a lot of knives, bad for razors. Try it before the 4k, and if it seems to speed things up, use it there. I wouldn't even bother trying it after the 4k, to be honest. In my experience a LWW edge is harder to clean up on a razor than a 4k whetstone edge.

I own a handful of Washita's and use them quite a lot with knives. I use them in place of a 1.2k DMT + 8k DMT with knives. I never use them with razors any more.

Thanks for the info. I've been looking for someone to help me out with the Washita, and you're the first to put it in a way that makes sense to me, so thank you for that, very much appreciated

Long ago, it was suggested to hone razors on a Washita with spine-leading strokes - to avoid the toothy edge.
How/why that was supposed to work - I dunno. But I did read it in some manual somewhere on the web.

I tried that on a washita way back when I didn't know what I was doing and it did seem to let the edge shave a bit better (I was trying to convince myself I had a razor stone at the time); but honestly it wasn't enough of a difference that I'd consider it a technique; and these days I suspect the results were mostly coming from a change in how I was applying pressure to the blade than a function of the spine-leading motion itself.

I think the theory was that the particle density was less and driving the edge into spread-out particles head-on was thought to increase the 'tooth'.
Whatever the case - I'm sure someone used that style with success, Never seemed to be something I wanted to try though.

I was talking to an old Italian trained barber. He pulled out a small Coti and showed me the way to use it. Only, he was using spine leading strokes on it. It told him I went with edge leading strokes and he looked at me like I was stupid. Each to their own I suppose. He had be cutting hair and giving shaves at the same place for 42 years, part of me wants to think there might be something to it but I don't have the time right now to play with the idea.

driftwood said:

I was talking to an old Italian trained barber. He pulled out a small Coti and showed me the way to use it. Only, he was using spine leading strokes on it. It told him I went with edge leading strokes and he looked at me like I was stupid. Each to their own I suppose. He had be cutting hair and giving shaves at the same place for 42 years, part of me wants to think there might be something to it but I don't have the time right now to play with the idea.

Click to expand...

I already wrote about on other Forums, here is an actual Video showing a certain old tecnique..check back on
1:30 min. here is an example where he explaines how his grandfather did hone the razor, its a kind of moving a eight on the stone in spine leading movements...


We discussed this also on the other boards, a interesting statement was that this tecnique was used from older Barbers in Germany....
i also mentioned that the "eight" in general (not talking about spine leading or edge leading itself) is often used and well communicated...i heard it several times people mentioning "my grandfather moved the razor on kinds of eights and other movements" or "he used to do eights on the barber hones"....there is a older literature mentioning the eight as a movement in honing...

We just found a source where the eight itself is named, here:
"Essays on Barbers Razors, Razor Hones, Razor Strops and Razor Honing" by Napoleon LeBlanc, page 18

It says: "Then finish your honing on the usual way, taking a few short, light strokes in shape of the figure eight or letter x....

If anybody is interested:
https://archive.org/details/essayonbarbersra00lebl