Thread: Fin: fact or fiction?

Originally Posted by kelbro

Some of you guys need to find a woman...

Ohhh I know what you're talking about.

I've been checking out the Nude scales on a couple ebay specials too

Originally Posted by kevint

I've been checking out the Nude scales on a couple ebay specials too

Groan!

PS Does stropping realign anything? If so, I will use the word fin to describe that part of the bevel that is normally realigned during stropping

When you can't see it with the naked eye or under general magnification, is it worth our time worrying about it. We can't all hone and test using a scanning electron microscopes so the evidence proved by such a method is immaterial to the process of sharpening. I also think that when effects on the honing and stropping process can only be viewed by such means, we are beyond the point where it really affects the shave to any great degree, if proper maintenance is carried out. We are talking about properties of the edge that are sooooo minuscule that they can have no radical effect on the edge performance for shaving. it's hair we are cutting not the freekin atom This is a hobby not a science isn't it?

PuFF

Originally Posted by kelbro

Some of you guys need to find a woman...

Weird. My wife says exactly the same...

Originally Posted by PuFFaH

This is a hobby not a science isn't it?

Science is my hobby, Puff.
and regarding straight razors, my hobby is my science...

OK, so I now think that there IS a fin!

I was checking out some honing action under the scope, and a small portion of the edge had apparently bumped into something

Anyhow, it allowed me to see how thin and easily deformable the final cutting edge of the razor is.

So, here is my conclusion:

The edge IS the fin, and the fin is the edge.

It is not a Y, it is a V, but a very narrow and pliable V.

And thus stropping is all important!

Thats pretty much what I was thinking all along, Thanks.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

OK, so I now think that there IS a fin!

I was checking out some honing action under the scope, and a small portion of the edge had apparently bumped into something

Anyhow, it allowed me to see how thin and easily deformable the final cutting edge of the razor is.

So, here is my conclusion:

The edge IS the fin.

It is not a Y, it is a V, but a very narrow and pliable V.

And thus stropping is all important!

I agree with this but why call it something other than "The edge"?

Originally Posted by Seraphim

OK, so I now think that there IS a fin!

I was checking out some honing action under the scope, and a small portion of the edge had apparently bumped into something

Anyhow, it allowed me to see how thin and easily deformable the final cutting edge of the razor is.

So, here is my conclusion:

The edge IS the fin.

It is not a Y, it is a V, but a very narrow and pliable V.

And thus stropping is all important!

I think you saw the evidence of how thin the edge is but you did not see how thin the edge is

Okay - I guess this should have happened a long time ago, but I'll put what my definition of a fin and an edge would be.

For a straight razor, an edge would be the intersection of two planes where the distance between them increases as the distance from the intersection increases, such as a V.

A fin would be a section of steel whose thickness is constant for a distance, protruding from the intersection of two planes where the distance between the two planes increases as the distance (opposite the fin) away from the intersection increases, such as a Y.

If the fin IS a V, then I would not classify it as a fin at all. It is in fact a V, albeit thin and easily deformable.