Why is the 1st shave after honing so disagreeable?

I'm going to jump back in here, I am so confused here as to what yer actual sharpening process is, I have re-read this thread several times since it started and I think I have it right that you're actually doing all yer honing on Barber hones???? More power to ya...

To clarify a little on just the strops, the linen or cotton on strops isn't really designed to do anything other than clean off the steel, it cleans off the microscopic rust and rough to present bright clean steel to the leather, some believe it warms the steel which helps the leather to align the edge better....
The leather aligns the edge, it puts on the final little UMmmmmpf of sharpness and smoothness for the shave...

Simply put each razor has to go through this process, one way or another, whether you do it nowadays, or the factory did it in the old days.......
1. Set the bevel (approximately 1k grit) 2. Sharpen the bevel (approximately 4k grit) 3. Polish the sharp edge ( approximately 8k grit) 4. Smooth the edge (optional, above 10k grit, or pastes) You can do this with any abrasives you want, but somehow, you will have to climb each step, take two steps at a time, and shortcut that process, and you're going to stumble, or the edge is going to act in a way that you are not expecting.....
Now looking to the past, with many NOS vintage razors you will find "Hair Tested at the Factory", markings, which is how they came, then you would have a razor that a slick smooth barber's hone would keep shaving sharp with the strops for many years to come, in fact most of the razors offered free re-honing in the old days!!!!!!!!
Nowadays we have to restore these to shaving sharp, or create shaving sharp with the new factory ones, so things are a little different....

This of course is JMHO and some experience thrown in, and written with much respect to all......

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Originally Posted by Johnny J

Well, I figured out that I ruined the edge with the newspaper by not stretching it tight over a flat surface like the other poster recommended. I'm guessing the newspaper curled up enough as I was stropping to eat the edge.

As for the linen...geez, I have no idea. Before I cleaned it I had tried it once, and while the jeweler's rouge was more aggressive than I liked, it didn't eat the razor like it did this time. It's possible that the linen needs a lot of wax or soap or whatever to fill the voids between the cobblestones so the texture is not too rough. Maybe by cleaning it I removed enough wax to make the surface really brutal. I'll try re-waxing it & see if that helps.

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I would sugest you use a hard cake soap to re-fill the strop.

PuFF

Barber hones can and do give a great edge when care is taken. I have and still do use barber hones more than any other hone I possess for reviving an edge. I have even brought Ebay specials up to shave sharp with just a small range of barber hones.
Be aware though that they are prone to fooling the unwary that the razor is sharp :) Wire edges can come without you knowing. Back honing for a few strokes then finishing with a few normal will cure this. X pattern is a must IMO. If it feels sharp in the test...try a couple more strokes to see what happens ;) Even a hone advertised as a dry hone...use water/lather.

I would evaluate your honing if Chromium or linen is needed after honing. They will get the razor up to a shave edge but this edge is most likely weak or damaged to the point where it won't last. You should only need plain leather after you honed the razor. Linen is a tool for reviving an edge....how it does this is a matter on contention and not appropriate for this thread :D another pointer is the quantity of reps on the leather, when 30-50 should be more than adequate.

Tension in a pasted strop is critical and should be bar tight. Pressure should be ultra light and X pattern. I would also recommend that half the strokes should be done in a toe leading fashion (following hone scratch pattern). This is I found a must with diamond pastes. Chromium for me works best when used little and only when linen fails to revive, pointing to true dulling has happened and the hone is calling. This is the same with all pastes but a razor can be kept going for a very long time with pastes if used correctly. Convexing of the edge points to slack pasted strop imo.

Try looking on Ebay for old strops that have a good linen side that still looks stiff. This will replace your washed one that possibly still has paste in the weave. Clean it with stiff lather but leave the last coating of lather to dry on the linen. When dry, burnish it with the palm of the hand like you do to prep the leather strop before stropping.

I've spouted on enough...sorry

PuFF

Gssixgun; yes, all the hones I listed in my progression are barber hones. It's hard to know what the grits really are, but the coarsest one seems like it's around 1k and the finest is around 10K or thereabouts. The coarse one is my bevel-setter. I always hone in an X-pattern because the hones are too small to hone any other way.

It's also true that I don't know what that red stuff is (or rather, was). I'm guessing ferric oxide, but it could have been anything.

There's no slack in my pasted strop because it's a loom strop set as tight as it will go.

Puffah, earlier in this thread sixgun suggested using the linen after honing to remove the wire edge, and it actually seems to work. But you're saying backhoning would be better? I've never tried that. But why is it bad to do it with the linen if it seems to work?

Now I'm twice as confused as when I started.

Confucius said a fanatic is someone who redoubles his efforts while losing sight of his goal, so let me restate the goal. The coarseness of my beard makes frequent touch-ups necessary. When I first started shaving, I'd do the touch-ups on the Lithide hone, but that would lead to a wire edge that would break off. Then I started doing touch-ups on Cr02. This was better than doing them on the hone. It didn't create a burr anymore. But it would eventually convex my edge into oblivion.

My third stab is now to revert to touching up on the Lithide hone, but to use the linen (1) to make touch-ups less frequent, and (2) to remove any wire edge that might result. I also might try stab #4: backhoning to remove the wire edge, and linen to reduce the frequency of touch-ups.

There are too many goddamn variables & I'm getting lost in them all.

Not that you havent recieved a bunch of great advice here but when I read your first post something caught my eye straight away....you said ' your monthly honing'. in my experience a razor does not have to be or shouldnt be honed monthly, therefore as others have already said you may be getting a wire edge from over honing...literally too much honing.

Im not saying Im definately right but a well honed razor should last 3-6 months anyways depending on the razor, condition and quality of edge to start with, if your lucky enough to have a sizeable rotation it will last longer.

Honing isnt easy , this I know, i learned on skype from randydance using video and I have picked up tips along the way, from Joe Chandler, GSsixgun, Lynn and a few others as there are so many to mention, I hope you have recieved all the info and found it useful and have been able to resolve your issues.

I also hope you dont mind me chiming in, im no expert but i understand.

regards,simon

PS I see you say your beard is very coarse....Ive heard this sooooo much...most guys say it.....however my point wasnt to make fun...have you considered maybe a different approach to your face prep also, this may help with the amount of ' touching up you have to do...or considering your razor..different size, grind, wedge etc?
Just ideas.

Update:

Puff my man, you are a genius. All you guys who suspected there was a problem with my honing were right. The problem is, as Puff says, barber hones are particularly prone to raising a burr, which I tried removing in three different incorrect ways: with my face, with Cr02, and with linen. While the linen does remove the burr, it's not hard to imagine what the edge would look like under an electron microscope after the burr has been ripped off.

So instead I tried as puff suggests, finishing my honing with 3-5 back strokes, then 5 forward strokes (being careful to follow the scratch pattern on the backstroke, i.e. start the X at the toe). I also honed wet, as Puff also suggests. First I tried it on a dull razor that needed the whole hone progression. Then I tried it on a sharp razor using only the Lithide hone to see if I could touch it up, and then remove the burr that results.

In both cases, it is as Puff says; all I need is the hone & plain leather, no Cr02 or linen necessary.

Now the questions I have to resolve experimentally are:

(1) Will a nicely backhoned edge last longer? With my previous honing method, I could feel the quality of the shave starting to deteriorate by the 3rd shave. Let's see if this edge is more durable.

(2) When the shave quality does start to deteriorate, can I bring it back with the linen & delay having to touch it up? I suppose now that Puff has told me how to touch it up without raising a burr, I suppose there's no harm in frequent touch-ups other than wear on the razor, but if you can cut the wear down, why not, eh?

Oh, another interesting thing: on the first one or two back-strokes I can actually feel the scraping non-smoothness of the burr being dragged across the hone. When the back-stroke glides as smoothly as the forward stroke, it's time to stop. This seems to take 3-5 strokes.

Addendum: to answer Simon's questions, yes I've tried those things & they definitely do help. Prep is key. Without good prep I can't get a good shave with any razor, no matter how good the edge is. My prep routine is: degrease face with soap, hot towel or shower, shave oil, lather, let lather soak in while stropping, re-lather. I highly recommend this routine. I also have a preference for big half-hollow blades over small half-hollow or small wedge blades. I haven't been able to get my hands on a big wedge to try it.

Johnny,

That's all great news.
PuFFah indeed summed it all up.

About edge durability...
In my experience and edge that is formed by means of "push-honing" lasts much longer than an edge formed by "pull-honing" (backhoning or stropping on abrasive pastes). I think that's the reason why so many seasoned honers prefer to build an edge on hones and consider going to pastes a sort of emergency solution, if nothing else seems to work.
There are different physical phenomena at work with the two different ways to build an edge: to simplify, push-honing exposes a hard steel edge that already was present underneath the dull shaped bevel to begin with. All honing relies on two principles. "Plastic flow" is basically the same thing that happens during production of cold or hot rolled steel. "Debris deposit" is the piling up of abraded particles along the edge. Pull-honing leads to the very tip of the edge being formed by debris deposit and and plastic transformed steel...

I think beard coarseness plays only a minor part in edge durability, considered the above, and also considered that factors like stropping habits, beard preparation, steel hardness and razor storage are to be accounted for as well.

I also think that CrO can be used for two different purposes:
1. To further polish an already outstandingly keen edge, in order to augment shaving comfort.
2. To gain additional sharpness at an otherwise sub-par edge.

The shaves of the latter method can be good, but one needs to accept that those edges don't last very long. Lately I've heard that a Nakayama hone can replace CrO for both purposes, without the downside of the pull-honed edge, but I've not had the good fortune yet of first hand experience with that.

Anyway, I'm glad you finally nailed down the caveats of your honing method with barberhones. I'm sure this can help many others, and although somewhere in the middle of this thread things got very confusing, I'm gonna rate it 5 stars.

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Originally Posted by Bart

Johnny,

That's all great news.
PuFFah indeed summed it all up.


There are different physical phenomena at work with the two different ways to build an edge: to simplify, push-honing exposes a hard steel edge that already was present underneath the dull shaped bevel to begin with. All honing relies on two principles. "Plastic flow" is basically the same thing that happens during production of cold or hot rolled steel. "Debris deposit" is the piling up of abraded particles along the edge. Pull-honing leads to the very tip of the edge being formed by debris deposit and and plastic transformed steel...

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I'm not so sure about your plastic flow theory Bart. The edge is not extruded or stretched out as far as I know, nor does it exist underneath a shaped bevel. The edge is developed through abrasion- the removal of metal. I picture flow to be thinning of the edge.

I'll have to study on the debris deposit aspect some more, perhaps review my Veerhoven (sp)

A razor is the only thing I have ever stropped with paste or otherwise. I noticed a long time ago wood carvers using relatively coarse novacs were all about stropping. They were constantly returning to the strop which led me to surmise that while their tools were sharp the edge was left weak and unsupported. In the mid/late 80's King stones were all I could find locally a should remain a good option for beginners today

I usually like to put on my mystic's robes when sharpening, there is much going on on that ultrafine scale that I cannot see. You have to learn how to feel it. The fact that several have voiced their view that 20-30x is enough magnification to see what's happening kinda supports a similar view.

I'd give it 5 stars as well.

Actually, Verhoeven is were I got most of the information I wrote about in my previous post.
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/downloads...nifeshexps.pdf

But whatever the explanation, that a "pull-honed" edge is weaker, is something that can easily be backed by empirical evidence: I believe many people can confirm that from their own experience.

Best regards,

Bart.

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Originally Posted by Bart

Actually, Verhoeven is were I got most of the information I wrote about in my previous post.
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/downloads...nifeshexps.pdf

But whatever the explanation, that a "pull-honed" edge is weaker, is something that can easily be backed by empirical evidence: I believe many people can confirm that from their own experience.

Best regards,

Bart.

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I read the paper in your link and I didn't find anything that supports your point. Maybe you could quote if for me. What I did find was this:

The major conclusion of the study is that of the three honing methods studied, the best method for removing the bur and setting the edge angle is clearly a final polish on leather loaded with a polishing compound such as the chromium oxide or diamond compounds used here.