Thread: My first bevel setting - parts not making contact with hone

Welcome to SRP. Checkout this tutorial in the SRP Wiki here. It is from the 1961 barber manual excerpt and illustrates and describes honing with the x stroke to avoid a frown. From your illustrations it appears that you will be putting a frown in that razor if you keep at it. Read the tutorial and follow the method and you may be able to correct what you've already done.

Alternatively you might send it out to a forum member for professional honing. Don't worry about corrupting your muscle memory by using a stroke other than dead flat. You have to use the stroke that works or you'll not only get nowhere but you'll make matters worse.

How much damage you may have done would depend on how much pressure you've been using and how much metal you've already taken off. One layer of tape on the spine might be a good idea until you feel confident in your honing skills.

I just re-read yer post, I think we are all assuming that the hone you are using is FLAT by the way....

+1 On Jimmy and Glenn both. As Glenn has pointed out, and you might have already done this, make sure your stone is flat. Jimmy has recommended that you tape the spine. Do this, no matter what at this point. I would personally do the following with this razor. After taping the spine I would remark the edge. After it dries, take one stroke up and one stroke back on the stone. Make sure this is very slow, maybe 1 to 2 seconds. Look at the marking, it will show you exactly what you need to know. So know you have some areas that that stroke didn't remove the mark, that means you have to find the x or rolling-x stroke that will. Again, very slowly, do one of these and see if more of the mark was removed. If it was, continue doing this, again verry slowly, until the mark is completely gone. This is the stroke you will need to produce the bevel you are looking for. Next dry and remark the blade. Do one stroke up and one back and look at the blade. You should have, at this point, all of the marker removed from the edge. If not, keep figuring it out until you can do this last test. Once you can do that you can start to set the bevel. Again, Very Very Slowly. It should not take more than 20 or 30 laps to set the bevel. If you aren't close by that time, there is something really wrong.
The key to this part is the speed. It doesn't matter how fast you go, you only have 8" of stone to work with. No matter how fast you move the blade over the stone, you will still remove the same amount of metal. Starting out slowly, while you are learning, will allow you to actually watch what is going on and develop better muscle memory.
Jimmy is correct though in recommending at this point that you stop what you are doing and get this Inox to a honester before you totally trash your investment. Here is a link to the classified section.

Get yourself a beater from ebay and practice on that until you feel comfortable with the process and then you can move up to your Inox without trepidation.

Hope this helps,

Ray

Thank you guys for insightful answers to my honing problem.
This forum rocks!
I didn't expect so many answers in such a short time!

One thing is certain - as I understand from your answers I've done more than enough strokes on this problematic razor on 1K hone and I should stop doing it before killing the spine coz it will not "even out" if I keep doing it with no mods to my honing method.

Therefore I am putting some layers of black electric tape around the spine, I guess I'll start with 3 pieces of that stuff following Glen's advice, then I'll degrade to 1 layer if I can feel the new formed edge and try to sharpen it keeping 1 layer on spine. All the time frequent marker tests in between strokes of course It should become clear by that time wheter to use x stroke or rolling x stroke with the leading heel - will proceed with a gentle rolling if warp proves too strong to attain an edge with 1 layer of tape on.
Please correct me if I am wrong in my understanding.

I'll update with fresh results.
Thank you,
Magus

PS. I'm already hunting for some cheap beater (like Wapienica) on the auctions to improve my honing technique

Sounds like you're on the right track now. I put the marker on and see what type of stroke I need to use to make contact with the hone for the length of the blade and then I immediately wipe the marker off.

Use the 3 layers of tape until you can pass the TNT. Once passed go to one layer and repeat until you can pass the TNT again. From that point don't use the TNT anymore. Rely on the TPT. You can educate your thumb pad by using a new DE blade if you have one to be able to tell the 'sticky' feeling that you are looking for.

Ok, so far I finally arrived at the point of using 1 layer of tape. Even 3 layers of tape with normal X stroke couldn't accomplish the bevel on the whole length. However the length of bevel which I produced with 3 layers was longer than before But seeing that after about 30 strokes it was not increasing in size, I switched to slight rolling x technique (especially pronounced on that warped side) and I tell you that was a good move! Doing so the bevel began forming on the whole size of the blade, even the most distant parts were touched by the stroke and the marker on the new (smaller) bevel finally disapeared after a few strokes. Again, with marker I repeat the stroke until it felt like quite sharp on all points of the blade (TNT went smooth imho). Then I switched to 1 layer. This time I took me longer to make the marker disappear, obviously angle was more acute with 1 layer so at first the steel was being removed from slightly above the very edge and then, step by step the new bevel formed itself until all marker was gone. Again, I repeated the above until the marker disppeared a few times. Now I am working to make it sharp at this 1K level
Maybe it's too early to go into 4K.
Well, it's passing TNT on the whole length, HHT fail, trying TPT.... DE which I used about a week ago is gliding across my thumble pad almost without doing any nicks (already dull I guess) therefore I'll check with fresh one to feel the difference. BUT with the blade I am honing I am feeling a slight sinking into the skin when I position the blade under angle slightly more acute then normal perpendicular. If I do mid-air shaving test on the arm or leg (with dry hair, quite dense and thick), then one slow stroke on the whole length of the limb produces a few chopped off pieces of hair at most.

Should I give it a few more dozen of strokes and expect more sharpness at this stage,
or do many strokes, enough until it grabs almost all hair in mid-air
or is it safe to move to 4K now?

Magus

Magus,
Congradulations, you are finally on the right tract. You have reached a point, though, where there are differing opinions on what to do now. I will tell you what I do, and then maybe some others can chime in and give you some other recommendations.
When I am setting the bevel there are two processes that are actually going on. The first if the forming of the bevel itself. I try to make sure the bevel is as close to the same on both sides of the blade and will compensate in the number of laps per side to try and equal this out. The second process is, of course, the forming of the edge. These are two separate things and develop on their own. We can produce a perfect bevel on both sides, but have a wide edge that won't cut anything. Or we could produce a nice edge that cuts and have a lopsided bevel. So I pay attention to both of these. The test that I use while setting the bevel is also the TNT. When you wet your thumb nail and slowly run the edge of the blade across it, it should want to dig in and you should feel no bumps. I then very lightly, and very slowly continue to hone, and every 5 full strokes test and see if I can cut arm hair along the whole blade. If I do, then it is time to move on. From here out DO NOT do the TNT again. It will ruin your work.
You are now ready to start on either a pyramid or progressive lapping on the higher grit stones. You also need to be very honest with yourself here. If for any reason you feel the edge of your blade dig in on any of your strokes, you will need to step back one stone and start over again.

So far, it seems like you have made it past the most frustrating part. The rest will come easier now.

Good Luck

Ray

Originally Posted by Magus

PS. I'm already hunting for some cheap beater (like Wapienica) on the auctions to improve my honing technique

That's a really good idea. When I started out honing, somebody on this site actually shipped me a Double Arrow razor for free to use for practice. I already shipped it off to someone else who was learning how to hone, but maybe somebody else on the side might help out ...????

-Happing honing

Chief