Thread: More on high passes - with pics

I had some time to continue my experiments tonight. The pictures pretty well speak for themselves:
(the microscope claims that these are at 400x, by my math they are closer to 150x.)

Edit: to be clear, I am not advocating high laps. This is an experiment to see what happens when using high laps...

Last pic...
Awhile ago someone asked for a picture of an edge after shaving with it.
This is what this one looked like:

Nice pics. So it seems that the edge was developing microchips after honing on the high grits with a lot of pressure. Am I getting that right?

Originally Posted by heirkb

Nice pics. So it seems that the edge was developing microchips after honing on the high grits with a lot of pressure. Am I getting that right?

That's my conclusion from what I've seen so far. I have been able to see edge damage from high laps as well (it didn't happen with this razor). As far as doing too many laps goes, the damage that I've seen is usually minimal enough to where the razor will still shave. The big problem with too many laps is that they aren't really necessary (note that 20 laps on the 8k is virtually no different than 80 laps, and 10 laps on the 12k are virtually no different than 75 laps) so what happens with high laps is that you do take a risk of developing a microburr, but you also take the risk of having one bad stroke that will ruin your edge.
The big problem is using pressure on the high grit stones. When using pressure it doesn't take many laps at all to do damage that will prevent the blade from shaving well.

At least... those are my conclusions so far. The experimenting continues.

GOODNESS, it's nice to "see" the what pressure does to the edge. It took my stubborn self too long to learn the importance of pressure.

The 10-laps on CrOx I assume is after the 75-laps 12K Nani?

Is the the idea of cross-hatching or varying the scratch pattern of any interest to you? I've long wondered if it was a placebo affect or not, but I typically try to vary the scratch pattern as I get close to being done on a particular hone.

What 'scope are you using? I've been eyeballing the Veho USB microscope for some time.

I will send you polycrystalline diamond and monocrystalline diamond spray in .5microns if you want to compare them. I've looked all over the internet and the only comparisons I can find are related to aesthetic polishing, NOT cutting egdes. I know on knives and scissors I prefer the poly hands down. (Mono=non-friable, crystaline "blocks" Poly=friable jagged crystaline "****erburrs")

I'm still undecided on razors, as I haven't given a fair comparison of .5 mono to .5 poly yet. Only 3mic poly to 2mic mono...and poly still wins that battle. I have .5 mono and .25 poly but that's not a fair comparison.

It would only let me "thank you" once! lol

Originally Posted by Soilarch

GOODNESS, it's nice to "see" the what pressure does to the edge. It took my stubborn self too long to learn the importance of pressure.

The 10-laps on CrOx I assume is after the 75-laps 12K Nani?

Yeah, I should have mentioned the sequencing in the OP... The first picture is of what I consider a finished 8k edge. Then I decided to ruin it. Hehe. I went back to the 4k to take those chips out, and then back to the 8k to get back to what we started with before doing the high lap count and then moving on to the 12k. The sequence with the 12k was basically the same... Get it finished (10 laps) kill it (pressure) then back down to the 8k to fix it before moving back to the high laps. From there it was on to the CrOx. I didn't do anything other than more laps between those photos... There was no damage to fix.
One thing that occurred to me while I was doing this is that the pyramids can probably make a huge difference for a honer that is heavy-handed.

Originally Posted by Soilarch

Is the the idea of cross-hatching or varying the scratch pattern of any interest to you? I've long wondered if it was a placebo affect or not, but I typically try to vary the scratch pattern as I get close to being done on a particular hone.

I'm not familiar with the technique for that, and have never tried it. After I have the bevel I usually just do x-strokes.

Originally Posted by Soilarch

What 'scope are you using? I've been eyeballing the Veho USB microscope for some time.

I was originally using a Veho, but I just got a Red Ant and really like it. It was the cheapest USB microscope I could find, originally I bought it to get parts for the shave cam. But... I am going to keep using this one, and the Veho is going to be turned into the shave cam.
I will say that if you're not good at troubleshooting problems, the install on the Veho was easier. The Red Ant has almost no documentation, and I could see it being confusing for some folks.

Originally Posted by Soilarch

I will send you polycrystalline diamond and monocrystalline diamond spray in .5microns if you want to compare them. I've looked all over the internet and the only comparisons I can find are related to aesthetic polishing, NOT cutting egdes. I know on knives and scissors I prefer the poly hands down. (Mono=non-friable, crystaline "blocks" Poly=friable jagged crystaline "****erburrs")

I'm still undecided on razors, as I haven't given a fair comparison of .5 mono to .5 poly yet. Only 3mic poly to 2mic mono...and poly still wins that battle. I have .5 mono and .25 poly but that's not a fair comparison.

I'll send you a PM.

What a great, great post! Thank you.

It would be interesting to see some pictures of an edge after some circular honing.

Thank you very much for posting the pics of your results. It's always nice to see what is happening to an edge. I love using my microscope to look at whats being done to the edge as I hone, but I cant take pics with mine

It's nice for someone learning to hone to be able to see the pics you have posted as well. Maybe it will give them an Idea about how pressure can change an edge.

Once again thank you

Great pics, thanks for your hard work and sharing. It was interesting to see the effect of too much pressure has. A good reminder to take your time and let the hone do it's job and not rush IMHO.

So these pictures were taken with this USb mic?

Red Ant DM-300A PC Link USB Digital Microscope - eBay (item 320562483436 end time Mar-13-11 08:18:20 PDT)