Thread: What is "overhoning"? and...Dremel cleaning...and finding my path as a newbie

I hone my razors with tape, especially if it needs lots of work or is a heavy grind. I have bought lots of eBay razors and restored them, but have found that old fasioned effort and wet/dry sandpaper are the best methods for bringing them back. I tried to speed up the process by using a dremel a couple of times with bad results! I put grinding marks in the blade that I couldn't remove no matter the amount of polishing...

What the seller on EBay is describing is excessive hone wear on the spine.

Back in the day, Barber Hones were popular, they were/are small aggressive stones, that were the cause of most of the excessive spine wear, where the spine is worn flat, sometimes the flat is more than an1/8 of an inch, sometimes, much more.

The first rule of restoration, Restoration begins at purchase. Buy a razor in the best condition, (least amount of spine wear), here is a good post from the Library, (Purchasing a Razor), where there is a wealth of information.

The reality is, once a razor is properly honed, shave ready, it can be maintained with a strop and may occasionally need a touch up on a high grit finishing stone that will remove a minimal amount of steel. Which is why there are so many 100 plus year old razors still available.

As you learn to hone, it is strongly recommended to tape the spine, for protection for wear. It is not uncommon for new honers to use excessively low grit stones and too much pressure causing, needless spine wear.

Once you master honing, then decide if you want to continue to tape, there is no downside to using tape. If you get into restoring razors, you can easily spend countless hours sanding and polishing a razor. I doubt that after you do, you will want to grind the spine of your shiny restoration needlessly.

Dremel’s can be used, with extreme care, many a razor has been ruined by one, be careful or start off by hand.

I started to reply to this earlier and got sidetracked. Most of what I wanted to say has been brought up. I look at the knowledge and advice here and form my own opinions on what I want to take from it. Yes there are contradictions but what works for some doesn't work for others. Find your own way and enjoy the journey.

I wonder how many "cut of the day" pics are from using Dremel's on a blade

I'm very experienced with using angle grinders, die grinders and the like. I've had to make welds disappear in areas the size of your pinkie toe nail to welds as long as your arm. All this experience and I dislike the dremel greatly. I have a really nice one with variable speed to aid in control. However, the dremel is a difficult tool to use, because its design is inherently a challenge. This makes it a challenge to do fine work, even though that is what it is designed to do.

It is a great priced tool and the accessories that can be used for razors are plentiful. However, there is little benefit to it for polishing that cannot be obtained with a little elbow grease, the proper polish and a good microfiber cloth. The razors themselves were rarely mirror polished and it tends to attract fingerprints like white dog hair to black pants.

I find the dremel is best utilized to cut broken toes to make short razors and sanding down the burs created by the die grinder. If you get the drill press stand for the dremel, it can be utilized in that fashion to remove pins and drill the holes for pins in scales. OTOH, I prefer the control of a pin vise for removing pins and a simple drill is sufficient for drilling scales.

Overhoning could be stated two ways, as I understand it and what I have done/seen with old razors. One way is putting too much pressure on the spine and too little on the edge, causing excessive spine wear. The second is too much time spent on higher grit stones, where the edge will become overly fragile to the point that cutting hair will make it chip. Trust me, this is not a good shave when that happens. That is why I spend much time with magnification to get the best edge at 1000/2000/5000 grit stones.

OK, so if I am understanding this correctly:

Overhoning
is really uneven or irregular honing. You could even say incorrect honing. Spine is not even due to bad angle on hone.
Questions:
1) Can this be corrected?
2) If I hone correctly, this will never happen to my razor?

Correcting this problem seems unlikely, unless one either grinds down spine to make even, removing potentially a LOT of material, which would change angle of bevel, or building up the low spots, which seems either very advanced or completely undoable (and I'm leaning towards undoable).

Dremel
Some like the Dremel, some don't. It seems to me that doing damage with a Dremel would likely come from one or more of the following:
1) rubbing compound too course
2) buffing wheel rubbing in wrong direction
3) buffing wheel held in one place too long
4) buffing wheel used beyond its useful life

Wrong direction would be similar to shaving WTG, XTG, or ATG, or sanding wood in similar manner in relation to grain. Metal does not have "grain" but may have marks from grinding or honing. Buffing or grinding in same direction seems like that would be wise. Or not? Mirror finish seems like that would be less likely with correct grit compound.

Did I miss other problems? If one were to avoid the above 4 problems (or more, if identified) then one could avoid damage to the razor with a Dremel or other buffing tool?

I mean, even toothpaste is a mild abrasive, and can be used to fix small scratches in some surfaces. Maas, mag wheel polish, and other rubbing compounds can sometimes come in course or fine, very similar to paste for a strop. Use the appropriate grit for the appropriate job. Milder abrasive with more elbow grease is sometimes the better answer.

And, it sounds like, experience is the best teacher.

Am I on the right track?

MarkC

Over honing is different from hone wear. Over honing is honing until the edge gets very fragile and fall apart. Hone wear is from using to coarse of a hone and to much pressure, many used razors have this as they didn't tape the spines like many of us do when honing.

Here's a good link with pictures that show hone wear

http://straightrazorpalace.com/begin...hone-wear.html

The issues with the dremel boil down to two situations. 1) leaving it in one place to long and messing up the heat treatment and 2) breaking off a chunk of the razor. The secong can happen in a myriad of ways.

Originally Posted by rodb

Over honing is different from hone wear. Over honing is honing until the edge gets very fragile and fall apart. Hone wear is from using to coarse of a hone and to much pressure, many used razors have this as they didn't tape the spines like many of us do when honing.

Here's a good link with pictures that show hone wear

http://straightrazorpalace.com/begin...hone-wear.html

The fragility occurs from too much honing on a higher grit stone.

Yep They Really Did Pop """ Right Off On The Toe""""""""" Better Luck Next Time!!!!!!!!TY