Thread: Musing from a newbie

I'm quite new myself, and have never honed, but I do recall a recent thread someone had about 'oversharpening'.

From what I got, they were making a slight burr, which did bend and curl and dull quickly. The person found they had to hone more frequently than was appropriate. The advice given was to not hone so much.

Welcome to srp Hoopei,

Originally Posted by Hoopei

I really feel genuine sadness when I read of people giving up or razors on Ebay that say “it was not for me”

I've picked some of these razors and in all cases the people were right to give up - the razors wouldn't shave, the edges were trash. The same way you gave up 10 years ago when your razor was dull.

Originally Posted by Hoopei

Questions::::::

It seems to me your questions are mostly misunderstanding of what you've read. Generally there is no reason to tape a razor's spine, but taping it can prevent a lot of irreversible damage from people who are not very good at honing. As you noted shaving for hundreds of years with the same razor puts negligible amount of hone wear, as long as the razor is not abused. Yet at least 99.99% of the razors out there don't fall in that category. As far as the angles go after you read a bit more on the subject you'll realize there is a rather wide range of bevel angle that works really well.
Your father's description of too sharp is something we consider dull. When you raise a burr your edge fails catastrophically and the resulting edge is duller than the one you had just shortly before. So yes, you cannot have too-sharp, but each razor has a limit and the closer to it you are able to get, the better, of course provided you also have a shaving technique good enough to handle that level of sharpness.