Intro & Hello, also working to fix a big mistake!

Hello there! I've been lurking for a few weeks now, pretty much since getting a new straight razor as a Christmas gift. It's an "art of shaving" model made the T-I - the one with stainless scales (but carbon-steel blade -- go figure!). Anyway, I shaved with it for a few times when I first got it, and found that I really enjoy the "experience". But I noticed that I was getting some razor burn. Once I stropped it, it was worse. I suspect related to not being "shave ready" when I got it. I foolishly honed it on an extra fine stone I have, and stropped it, and was still able to shave, but was using a lot of pressure and a pretty steep angle.

At that point, I hadn't totally given up, but was considering buying a second razor -shave ready, and would send this one off to a hone-meister to be done right. That's when I messed up...

The razor slid out of the leather pouch, and hit my bathroom floor. When I looked down, I saw it had partially opened. When I picked it up, there was a slice mark in the side of the stainless scales, and a pretty good nick in the blade -- although I was surprized the nick wasn't more severe, considering how bad the slice in the scale looked. What was also odd -- I would have had to put a LOT of side pressure on the blade to get it to deflect enough to go anywhere near the sliced-spot on the scales!

Anyway, I ordered up a King japanese water stone -- the 1k-6k combo -- and lapped it along with my other sharpening stones. I used the bread-knife method to slowly take the chip out of the blade. This blade was not totally straight but has a slight smile to it -- which I maintained during the process.

Now I have re-set the bevel, and have been taking my time to hone on the 6k side of the King waterstone, with several re-lappings of the stone. I am using the rolling x technique to maintain the bevel along the entire smiling edge. But I am becoming frustrated at one thing ---- the blade is sharp enough to pop hairs easily at the toe and heel, and maybe 15mm or so along the blade edge from the tip and from the heel. But the middle part of the blade doesn't seem to want to get keen. I don't have a microscope or any way to look more closely at the edge, but the bevel looks nice by eye. I am not using any tape and did not use any during the bevel setting, either. I am trying to use light pressure since blade is 5/8 and full hollow, I don't think deflection is the issue. Can anyone give me some pointers? I can't seem to find much about how to get past this when I search these forums, and I have read the Wiki a few times over.

My feeling is that I need to get the entire length of blade sharp enough to at least shave some arm/hand hairs before stepping to a finer grit than the 6k. Also, I have not overhoned and have not created a "wire edge".

Is the middle or belly of the blade where the chip was? Anyway, it's possible that the belly of the blade is over honed rather than under honed. you might want to bring it all back to an even footing with a few laps on the 1k and then as you rolling x on the 6k don't spend too much time in the belly. I know this is frequently a challenge for me.

Welcome to SRP, Lou. Sorry to hear about your mishap. If it were me, I'd send it out to get it fixed. Check the classifieds for honemeisters. I'm a newbie, too, and the biggest problem I had was trying to get my razor shave ready when I didn't really know what a shave ready razor was. I got a shave ready Dovo for Christmas and the difference was unbelievable. I am getting another of my str8s honed now, so I'll have a rotation of two. I have five str8s I picked up in antique shops that I am cleaning up now. I'll get a couple of those professionally honed, then, in the next few months, I'll get some hones and practice on one of my $10 finds.

Dave

I don't think I've overhoned, and I have tried to go back to the 1k a few times as part of a bracketed honing approach, also have checked keenness periodically during the process. SO not thinking I have overhoned the belly,. but I can see that I should try to check.

Also, thinking the approach of multiple razors makes sense so that I can send one out and still have some to shave with... But no luck finding any locally, will probably keep checking the classifieds here for shave ready...

The bummer is, I would really like to get this honing down - I think being able to maintain my own razors is a key part of the whole straight edge razor experience.

Right now I'm just ready to shave with a straight - I've been using my Gillette DE safety razor and it just isn't as satisfying, simply put.

G'day & welcome LouT
Magnification will take a lot of the guesswork out of the equation. You can get cheap loupes or microscopes on eBay. 30X is good. Sitting here without a crystal ball is impossible to say if you've over or under honed the problem area but it's likely under honed.
You could determine underhoning by seeing if there is a glint off the edge under a bright light looking square to the edge but again magnification helps.

yeah, sounds like it's underhoned.
you need to stay with a coarse stone until the full edge is sharp
moving up to 4-6k grit stones is no good if the edge is dull.
as a start you need to get the middle of the blade to the same sharpness as the tip and heel.
use your thumbpad to check.

General ramblings-

Yes, learn how to do this stuff. You will flounder off and on, but it will come. You will feel real good about what you have learned.

Pressure and a pretty steep angle. A+ recipe for disaster. And razor rash, mixed in around the cuts. And that’s with a well honed edge. You want spine just barely off the skin, almost zero pressure on the edge skimming your face. Just barely raise the spine a little at a time till you reach the sweet spot.

Getting a (probably) vintage razor honed by someone who does it right is a great way to have a bench mark as you learn to hone your others yourself.

Smiling edges are much harder to deal with than straight edges, IMHO. I can get them HHT all along the length of the blade, but I don’t seem to be able to shave well with them. Others folks have no trouble honing or shaving with them. Just so you know that smiles are not just academically a little more difficult. You may want to get rid of the smile and move on from there.(since you are breadknifing already) Or keep the smiley blade until you have some more experience under your belt.

The 6000 grit stone is still a bit too coarse for a final shaving edge.

Wow, I get busy for a few days and forget to look back at my post, and next thing I know there's a bunch of additional advice - fantastic, thanks! The 30X examination sounds like ideal advice, along with going back to the 1000 grit until it is sharp on the entire edge before stepping up to the finer grit. I do have soft and hard arkansas stones, but not sure if they fall in between the 1000 and 6000 grits...

Either way, I am doing a couple of things right now, along the lines of advice given here.
(1) looking for a few lower priced vintage straights that I can use to learn honing technique - ideally one with a completely straight edge and one with a smile similar to the gifted razor. I need to restrain myself from going spend-crazy with RAD on e-bay!
(2) setting aside the new razor until I know what I'm doing, so I don't wear the entire spine off via honing!
(3) buying a 30x microscope. The Radio Shack one seems like it gets a lot of mention on this forum, but I'm not scared to pay 2-3 times that price if there's something a bit easier to use (allowing a view of more length along the blade edge, or easier to get and keep focus on the edge, etc.)
(4) sending at least one razor off to a honemeister so I can experience a truly shave ready razor (and also for basis of comparison with my own honing efforts. I'm near Boston so I am thinking I should look up Howard - he can probably also hook me up with any additional hones I will need.

This forum is awesome! Unfortunately I'm still shaving with my Gillette DE...:shrug:

Ummm, I'm thinking maybe what you're calling a "smiling" edge is actually called a "warped" edge? Do you mean the the edge is curved? or that the blade may have been bowed somewhat when it was bent sideways in order to cut the scales? I think honing a warped edge is difficult and even a bit of a challenge for the more accomplished honers.

OK, I double checked and triple checked, the blade does not appear warped or bent at all. The smile is very slight but I don't think I'm having any technique problems - I am maintaining a pretty even bevel all the way across each side of the blade and including the ends where the slight smile is. I don't want to breadknife it into a completely straight blade since it is pretty new.

I looked it over closely under light, and I did see the glint across the entire middle portion of blade, so thought that the underhoning was quite likely. I also bought one of the $12.00 led microscopes from Radio Shack. Almost seemed like I could see the thickness of "underhoned" portion across center of blade when viewing with the scope.

So, I went forth to "reset" the bevel with the 1k grit hone. I lapped hone to flat before beginning, and put two layers of thin clear packing tape on the spine -- my thought is the slightly steeper bevel would make it more obvious to me as I honed, to determine if I am at a full bevel vs. underhoning. ( I had not used any tape during my original honing efforts.)

I could see a slight difference in shading (not to mention the courser striations from the 1k grit) when examining the edge with the mini microscope during honing with the taped spine. I stopped when my new steeper bevel completely overtook the old bevel, and went a bit more to try to get the entire edge sharp at 1k grit. It's sharp, but cannot shave hairs from back of my hand, except for the very ends of the edges (at the smile spots again). I keep reading that I should not move up to higher grit until the entire edge is sharp -- does this mean capable of shaving arm/hand hairs, or just sharp like able to cut paper like a well sharpened knife?

Next I stepped up to the 6k grit side of my King waterstone. Lots of honing and I can't see much progress either with the microscope or with my attempts to shave hairs from back of my hand. So now I'm posting here for more advice. I'd like to make more progress on this today since I have some time, but my only other stones are:
-one soft arkansas stone -- I have lapped it flat.
-one hard arkansas stone - not the one that is considered the finest arkansas you can get, but just generally named hard arkansas - lapped flat
-one Gatco "fine" sharpening stone, part of a nice knife sharpening kit I own -- also lapped flat.

I'm thinking I need to go to at least one stone that is between the 1K and the 6k, to keep from honing on this blade all day long, but I don't want to mess my blade up by accidentally going to one that's coarser than the 1k -- any thoughts or knowledge on the above described hones would be a tremendous help!

Note, to keep from being at a shallower angle than I should, after I finished on the 1k hone I removed the worn tape and put two new layers on the spine before stepping up to the 6k hone.

LouT,

It sounds like you're doing fine. I'm going to keep this post short:

1. You need to work at 1K till you can shave arm hair along the entire length of the edge.
It makes no sense going to a finer hone before that goal is achieved. Don't worry by overhoning, even an overhoned edge will shave arm hair very well.

2. You are most likely "over-rocking" your stroke. As a result the tip and heel develops much faster than the middle part. Try a more shallow rocking curve.

3. On 1K, it can take a long time, after "breadknifing" till the bevel is completely shaped again. Don't worry about that, you'll get there eventually.

Good Luck,
Bart.

Working on your suggestions, Bart. I hope I can get it sharp enough to shave arm hair on the 1k -- seems like it's taking a LOT of honing. I am rocking it less, I hope that will help.

LouT, it is very likely to be time consuming on the 1k if you have breadknifed. We all know this feeling & sometimes a coarser stone is better in the early stages but you will get there.
I think your Arkansas stones will be of little use if you find the Norton slow. Back in the 80's I used to hone with Arkansas stones.
W a s h i t a stones are relatively fast for low grit work but not a patch on say, DMT's..

I'd get a King 4k to go between your 1k & 6K but that's kinda stating the obvious. You could maybe try light strokes on the Hard Arkansas to finish after 6K but I used to find a Black Arkansas the best finisher.
A known progression of grits makes things simpler tho.

I guess I forgot to mention something in my original post. I used the blue DMT coarse pocket hone (my son's) to breadknife my razor after I nicked the blade. It's about 320 grit. I also then used that diamond hone to start on creating a new bevel.

So it seems that I have honed on the 1000 grit stone "forever" even though the bevel was all the way or most of the way there from the DMT (I think I also used my Gatco medium grit stone before stepping up to the 1000 grit). I spent more time honing on the 1000 grit yesterday. It seems that theres about 1.25 -1.5 inch section in center of the blade that does not get sharp via the TPT and shows the "glint" when I try to look right at the edge under bright light. Are some blades just tough to hone? I keep wondering if my stone is dished, but I have gone back and re-lapped it several times -- using wet/dry sandpaper, 1000 grit, while wet, and the sandpaper is on a black granite floor tile I bought from THD.

Am I just being impatient. My SWMBO is starting to think that I'm spending too much time with this and regretting the gift she bought me since it is becoming an obsession! I want to shave with my straight and don't want to wait much longer!!

Patience indeed is your problem. :)

Imagine 1000 grit sandpaper. Imagine a piece of oak. Imagine sanding with zero pressure on that piece of oak. Imagine sanding one (1) coarse scratch out, made with the point of a nail. Imagine how it would take you days to succeed in that simple task. Now imagine hardened steel, many times harder than oak...

We often tend to forget that 1K hones are usually finishing hones, when it comes to regular knife and tool honing. Creating a new bevel has little to do with honing. It's grinding. There is no need to jump to the next stone before you're finished on the previous.
After all this time, I still struggle with that myself. Yesterday I honed a razor for a member. I started out at 1K. After half an hour, I started to wonder if I shouldn't have started at a lower grit.
But doing so would have completely "futilized" the previous half hour of concentrated honing. So I stayed on the 1K telling myself that those bevel sides could be meeting each other any stroke now. An hour later I knew what a fool I was. But still I was not prepared to go to a lower grit, where I could have done in 10 minutes what I couldn't achieve in 90. The part of the bevel that was already keen, started to grow, so I reckoned I was nearly home. 5 minutes later the razor was ready to move forward. 10 minutes later the honing job was finished. This razor was not "breadknifed", there were no chips at the edge and the bevel looked complete. I forgot a simple rule: if 10 minutes on a certain hone isn't enough, always jump to a lower grit.

Tell your wife that your razor is learning you how to be patient and how to let go of pride. I'm sure she'll see the virtues of that...:D

Best regards,
Bart.

Fantastic advice, Bart. I wish I had realized (several hours of honing ago) that mantra you just stated -- " if 10 minutes of honing at a certain grit is getting you nowhere, go to a coarser hone." !!!!

I am seeing the glint in the middle shrink and the length of sharpness at the ends of the edge grow, slowly, but progressing, so I think I will heed your advice and will continue with patience.

Sadly, I won't be able to dedicate any time to the task today, unless I get lucky and have some time tonight. While it is a work holiday, we got belted with a lot of snow - so now that I've gotten it all cleaned up, I need to clean myself up, then update my resume to apply for a promotion at work , then the list of things to keep my wife happy, etc..

I want to say thank you to everyone that has posted so far --- thank you for the welcome to this forum, and thank you for advising me through my struggles with my first hone job -- sincerely.

I will be posting when I can shave with my razor, or when it's time for more advice!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bart

Patience indeed is your problem. :)


After all this time, I still struggle with that myself. Yesterday I honed a razor for a member. I started out at 1K. After half an hour, I started to wonder if I shouldn't have started at a lower grit.
But doing so would have completely "futilized" the previous half hour of concentrated honing. So I stayed on the 1K telling myself that those bevel sides could be meeting each other any stroke now. An hour later I knew what a fool I was. But still I was not prepared to go to a lower grit, where I could have done in 10 minutes what I couldn't achieve in 90.


Best regards,
Bart.

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LOL.. I can so identify with that. :rofl2:
It's a bit like expecting the stockmarket to turnaround when there is a full decline. It will eventually but how patient are you ? I'm guilty of that one too. :cry:

OK, I got the razor sharp enough to shave with, almost....
Not "shave ready", but I did do one side of my face WTG with the razor. It was pulling, but also doing a decent amount of cutting. So I know I have more work to do -- I think I will try to spend some more time on the 6000 grit King -- under the radioshack microscope I wasn't able to tell very much that I had smoothed anything vs. the way the edge looked during strictly 1000 grit honing. I also have read here that the Kings are very slow cutters. I will have some patience on the 6000, and then see if I can get a barber's hone or something with a higher grit than the 6K to bring this blade to shave-ready.

Meanwhile, slightly distracted because I have a few razors I bought from fleabay to play with. I'll probably post something up in the workshop forum along the way...

I'll also re-post here when I get this razor to a BBS comfortable shave-capable status Thanks again all of you for the help!!:tu