Short: I honed my first razor today!
Long: Been sitting on a few auction razors I got. Polished them up and categorized them; one full restore, a few need new scales, one "project" razor, and then the rest were in pretty good shape and just need to be honed. I sent some to Utopian to hone and left one for when I get brave.
Ordered the DMT 80th anniversary set, which comes with 600- & 1200-grit whetstones (with the swarf pockets) and a D8EE. Bought a Norton 4k/8k from the classifieds (thanks, Sandcounty!) and I have a 3-line Swaty from the aforementioned auction.
Been
working on the project razor the last few days and thought that would be my hone test. Some advice in my thread persuaded me to first try one of the better blades, so I did that.
Wife is at Bonnaroo until Monday so I have free reign. Got my work space all set up, played some
Beefcake on the stereo, loaded up the pyramid cheat sheet site on my laptop, and went to work on a J.F. Ganley "Ganley's Gula" (
pic). Set the bevel with DMT 1200, worked the pyramid on the Norton, ran a few laps on the D8EE, a few on the Swaty, and then hit the strop.
Got a bit of lather from an old Colgate puck (also from the auction), put it on my neck, and then the moment of truth; it cut pretty smooth! Now it was nowhere near
honemeister smooth, but it didn't tug which is a victory in my book. I was a bit worried because I had read that the DMT 8k leaves the edge a bit more coarse than the Norton 8k -- that might have happened but it cut regardless.
Thanks to all for the knowledge, advice, brutal honesty and positive reinforcement!
:rock: