by radioactivejesus » Thu Feb 05, 2015 12:49 am
basically you are using a grinding device to create an extremely uniform surface on a piece of metal. Before honing, even an object that's intended to be the same thickness throughout will be 1/1000th to 2/1000ths of an inch too large or too small in areas. In ye olden days, the variance would be way larger. So picture a sword where the edges are sharp, but somewhat rough and uneven which hinders it's cutting ability. By using a honing stone, which is basically an abrasive like sandpaper or a grindstone, someone would level out the surface until it's reached perfection.
Staff making honing an optional process was a really neat idea, as it's often an optional step in real life too
tl;dr version: Basically you are sanding down the blade and applying finishing touches to the edge
A really bad sword with a short blade lies here.
look sword
This sword hardly even a sword. It's kind of really just a piece of metal bent like a sword. Its blade is rather short. Kind of pathetic, really.