Thread: Time to Start Honing

I've been shaving with a straight exclusively since Jan. My Genco Master Cutler is finally too dull to use without significant discomfort. I moved back to my WH Morley & Sons Clover Brand, which was the one I started with. It's shaving better than the Genco now, but I think the edge is rolled on it in places since I learned to strop primarily with it.

Anyway, I think it's time for me to redo the edge on the Genco, if not both of these razors. I was thinking of running to Woodcraft & picking up a Chinese 12K and maybe a Norton flattening stone to get it flat before using it. Would this be all I need, or at least an adequate place to start so I can "hone" my honing skills and get my Genco back in shave-ready condition?

Originally Posted by FightinTxAg

I've been shaving with a straight exclusively since Jan. My Genco Master Cutler is finally too dull to use without significant discomfort.

I think "significant discomfort" might be the key words . If the razor was just pulling a little , I would think the 12k would be fine . But if the edge has degraded to the level of significant discomfort , you may need to start on the 4k and work your way back up to the 8k , and then the 12k .

Could you lap a Chinese 12K with another Chinese 12K? Then you'd have one for slurry if you wanted.

Do not buy the Norton flattening stone to flatten anything other than waterstones, like Nortons. If you try to use it on the Chinese hone, you will just trash the flattening stone. That is, you will put significant wear into it and you will need to lap your lapping stone. Meanwhile, your Chinese hone will be sitting there wondering what was tickling it.

In the future, once you have a hone, touch up your razor as soon as the shave quality is noticably diminished. Don't wait for any discomfort and certainly not "significant discomfort." It takes a lot less honing to keep a razor sharp than it does to get the razor back to sharp.

I went and got a Chinese 12K. I've got it soaking right now. I also bought a Ice Bear 1K/6K combo stone. I thought the 6K might be handy if the 12K turned out to be too fine/slow for the wear on my blade. I thought the 1K might work for restoring ebay blades if I ever decide to go that route.

Can I use the 1K side of the Ice Bear to lap the 12K or is it too soft? If it's too soft, I guess I'll go with sandpaper.

TX,

In my experience the Chinese 12K is hard; hard enough that it wore the diamonds off one end of a DMT 8C for me when I first tried to flatten one. I pushed the process and didn't use enough water and bore down upon the stone too hard, forcing it against the DMT plate which pulled diamonds out of their nickel matrix. It's likely that any lapping medium will be challenged by the Chinese 12K. If you are going to use wet-or-dry paper just take it easy, use lots of water, use it one a real flat surface, and move the stone round and round, forth and back, and in figure eights. Swap ends on the stone from time to time to even out the uneven pressure from your hand. Try starting with a 320 or 400, coarser yet may not hurt. Finish with finer paper. Nothing over 1000 is necessary.

The counsel to not use a Norton lapping stone is sound advice, real sound.

You can try the Chinese stone - they're cheap enough but I feel you'll get a better finish edge and more quickly off of a Norton 4k8k. I have used the chinese stones and don't like them. They're slow and they feel dirty to me as if there's other stuff in the stone. I also feel they're misgraded and don't yield a 12k polish to the edge of the blade.

The Chinese 12K really doesn't need to be soaked. Just a film of water over the side you are working on should be fine. The basic problem with these stones is that they are inconsistent with results. Some folks like them, but there is a lot of experimentation in the process. You probably need at least 30 strokes for any results and you could end up doubling that depending on the razor and it's condition. But.....for only a couple of razor, you can have some fun with it if you don't get too impatient.

Lynn

THE HONE
Ok, so I used the C12K to bring back the Genco Master Cutler on Sunday after lapping with 160 & then 320 grit sandpaper on a piece of coffee table glass.

I used the C12K dry, mostly because I misread Lynn's post above. After I realized that wasn't what he recommended, I did a little searching on here to see if I might've ruined the stone. It seems some folks prefer to use the C12K dry or start with it wet and continue making passes until it's dry. Those folks feel the stone gets finer, smoother, and slower cutting when it's dry. I guess that would make sense if swarf starts filling in the pores and valleys in the stone's surface. I bet that's especially likely if the C12K is so hard that the blade isn't really knocking particles of the stone loose at all. So effectively the steel that's removed just embeds itself in the stone, kind of smoothing out the stone's surface as if you were smearing some paste or filler over it. Anyway, that's my theory, and I think I'll lap it a litte before using it again.

It is definitely very slow cutting. But that wasn't really a problem for me. As a newbie, it was probably better to use something so slow cutting. I made somewhere between 500 & 1000 passes. I know I counted 250, and I did easily twice that or more without counting. The last hundred or so may not've been necessary, as I couldn't discern any change in the blade during those passes.

While the stone is obviously slow-cutting, I think the number of passes needed was increased because:
(1) I was using it dry so it was getting essentially a finer and finer grit as I went,
(2) the previous owner of my blade used 2 layers of electrical tape instead of 1. So I think I was removing a lot of bevel material before I was working on the edge at all, and
(3) I just let the edge go way too far as it was painfully pulling whiskers, especially on my chin.

So the result was I was working on the C12K for a good 2.5 hours, but that's ok because I needed something to do while we watched The Dark Knight, which I found pretty boring. Anyway, after 500+ passes it was popping arm hairs.

THE SHAVE
I made 50 return strokes on my strop and then shaved with it last night. With the gradual degradation until the blade was significantly uncomfortable, I'd forgotten how smooth and effortless a sharp razor can be. It may've been a bit harsh, as I've heard some note the blade can be off of a C12K. Reapplying lather before my 2nd (ATG) pass, I noticed the slightest sting. But whatever irritation I got wasn't too much for the Nivea to remedy in the end.

CONCLUSIONS
I think when I go to hone my W.H.Morley & Sons Clover Brand, I'll start with the 6k Ice Bear to hopefully cut down on the number of stroke needed. From what I gather, the Clover Brands are an especially hard steel. So I think it'll be wise to start with the 6k side of the Ice Bear combo stone I bought at Woodcraft.

I'm also not going to go more than a couple weeks without making a couple dozen passes on the C12K. I think 20-50 passes on the slow-cutting C12K woud probably keep the razor edge keen and avoid having to sit down and spend significant time restoring the edge.