Circular Honing Motion Bad for Blades??

[trekon86]

Hi,
For years I've used a circular motion on my whetstone when I hone my knives. I find it is easier to keep the same angle that way. I have it down to an art, so that I can get any of my knives sharp enough to shave the hair off my arm.
However, I seem to remember someone telling me that the circular motion is bad for a knife or it's edge, I can't remember where I heard this. Is this true? Or is it just that it doesn't give a "freshly-ground" look to a knife's edge and that is why people don't like doing it?
Thanks,
PMZ

 

[thombrogan]

Theoretically, the random scratch pattern isn't so good for cutting. As you've seen, if it works, it works.

 

[Native Justice]

I use this method also on small field stones only and works well.

Theoretically, the circular scratch pattern leaves scratches parallel to the edge which weakens the blade edge.

I'm with Thom though, if it works go for it.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

However, I seem to remember someone telling me that the circular motion is bad for a knife or it's edge ...

If you use it as the finishing grind then it does three things which are not optimal :

1) it induces scratches which are parallel to the edge which serve basically as fault lines for the edge to fold upon

2) the micro-teeth will not be aggressively formed

3) scratches parallel to the grind actually make friction a significant force in cutting and thus lower cutting ability

However all of these are moot if you can get a blade sharper with circular motions because that is likely to have more of an effect that all of those aspects combined.

-Cliff

 

[HoB]

Also depends how highly you finish your edge. In principle it is actually beneficial when approaching a VERY high, (mirror) finish where you don't want to set "teeth" but rather try to minimize their occurance and size. When approaching an optical finish, the motion is ideally completely randomized because it leaves the most even and polished finish (like when sanding for a piano laquer finish, you never sand in one direction only). Though I mirror polish my edges on occation (meaning most of the time ), but I NEVER do circular motions. The body mechanics simply don't work for me. It is like Thom, Native, and Cliff say: You have to go with what works for you. We are not machines, some types of motion will simply work better than others.

 

[rebeltf]

Hi,
For years I've used a circular motion on my whetstone when I hone my knives. I find it is easier to keep the same angle that way. I have it down to an art, so that I can get any of my knives sharp enough to shave the hair off my arm.
However, I seem to remember someone telling me that the circular motion is bad for a knife or it's edge, I can't remember where I heard this. Is this true? Or is it just that it doesn't give a "freshly-ground" look to a knife's edge and that is why people don't like doing it?
Thanks,
PMZ

That's the way one of my Grandpa's taught me how to sharpen.
If I need to agressivly change the angle of a blades edge I will always start out on a thick grit stone using a curicular motion with oil of course , removes a goodly amount in little time. Move on down to finer stones , same motion , using a crock stick or very hard Arkansas to polish to a degree I might use strokes , or alternate depending on how polished I care to have the edge , a polished edge is not always practical and on certain blades I would rather not have a polished edge , machete for example.

 

[Ben Dover]

I learned the circular motion in the boy Scouts in the late fifties. I could get a shaving edge on the old cheap junk knives we were stuck with at the time like the Case and Ka-bar.

As I grew older, I learned that other methods were much easier, (Like the Sharpmaker. )

But, the circular method does work!

 

[STR]

Some instructions that came with diamond sharpeners up to the 90s, and even knives from the 70s and 80s had this circle motion recommended for sharpening but going from memory they only mention it for setting the initial bevel angle and getting that where you want it to begin the straight slice motion for the final edge. That is the way I understood it anyway. I do know people that use this motion for all their sharpening though and get excellent results. One is a professional wood carver here in town that does some fantastic carvings and he simply won't consider doing it any other way than the way he was taught by his mentor. Old habits die hard as they say.

STR

 

[OilMan]

Some instructions that came with diamond sharpeners up to the 90s, and even knives from the 70s and 80s had this circle motion recommended for sharpening but going from memory they only mention it for setting the initial bevel angle and getting that where you want it to begin the straight slice motion for the final edge. That is the way I understood it anyway.
STR

That's what I always heard too.