Thread: Knick on Edge

The other day, while kind of spacing out and stropping, I looked down at my strop to realize that there were fine scratches on it. On inspection of the edge of my edge, a piece several millimeters long has been "tipped" over a little bit. I had thought that I'd been nothing but careful, but this is apparently not the case.

I had also hoped I could go longer without having to submit myself and my beautiful shave ready blade to my own clumsiness, but I suppose I don't have much of a choice right now. Do I need to go 4000/8000, or can I just do some "tuning" with the 8000?

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Shibsky

I had also hoped I could go longer without having to submit myself and my beautiful shave ready blade to my own clumsiness, but I suppose I don't have much of a choice right now. Do I need to go 4000/8000, or can I just do some "tuning" with the 8000?

Thanks!

Hi.

Use the 4000 grit side of the Norton until your bevel is uniform again, only then switch to the 8000.

I concur whole-heartedly with Leon!

Several millimeters Bummer !
Not clear on the location of the damage but if it's at the toe you could even shorten the blade a little rather than honing.

Man, this place never ceases to amaze me! Thanks so much for all of your help. I figured that I might as well put some photos up of what I'm talking about to clarify the issue. I think these should help:

You should be able to get those out without a problem. Watch that the edge stays uniformly straight as you reset it. i.e. focus on bringing the whole edge back as a unit instead of just focusing on the nicks.

They don't look so bad- I misread your post , thought they were millimetres 'deep'
As Leon said that should yield to the 4k then 8K

So I went at it today and got in a few strokes before I realized my (previously unused) Norton 4k8k was grossly un-flat. The good news is that the nick "chunk" is gone and I can strop again, but the bad news is that I think my previously, gloriously, shave-ready straight now isn't as sharp. Time to get a Dia-sharp?

This damn razor and its added expenses. Why must you constantly test my devotion? (Or is that DOVOtion?)

Not sure, why would you need a DMT. This looks like a good chance to learn to hone your razor.
Take a look at the edge under magnification, it's quite likely your chips are not completely gone yet. If I were you I'd keep trying to get it shave-ready (the non-chipped parts) w/o getting out the chips completely. The idea is that it may take you some practice, so by the time you master it you may have gotten past the chips all by itself.

And don't forget to flatten your hone.

I was under the impression that in order to flatten my hone I needed a DMT. Is that not the case? The reason I stopped using the norton is that I can tell it is not flat in the slightest. (It bulges up quite a bit in the middle.)