Thread: Patience and burn.

So I hone my own knives, and as such hone, my own razors. (Grandfather's hand-me-downs) I have used a straight for the third time now, and each time it has burned, and I mean BURNED, not just after but during the shave as well. I'm assuming this is due to a razor that is not sharp enough yet, but as the title implies, I tend to rush through my honing process. Being aware of this I for some reason have not been able to correct it, even as I am aware of it in the act. I get so excited with the anticipation of being able to use it, I rush to get from point A to B. Are there any other factors that could cause this extreme burning besides the rushed honing? The lack of patience is something I am actively working on. And as a last note, the shave is very good, just painful. Not sure if that makes a difference.

Originally Posted by williamsld8

So I hone my own knives, and as such hone, my own razors. .

Does the answer lie there? A sharp knife is often dull for a razor. Can you tell us your progression and what stones/powders you end with? You stropped it?

Probably the most likely cause is the honing, but you can get burn from incorrect shaving technique too. There are a lot of moving parts with straight razors, and trying to minimise the number of variables initially is a good idea if you can. One way would be to send one of your razors to a professional honer - then you not only reduce the possible causes of your burn but you also have a professionally honed razor with which to gauge your future honing endeavours.

That is just a suggestion, but it is often a very useful one.

Good luck!

James.

For the honing, I had to reset the bevel on a razor out of the box before actually working on the edge. So it went like this: DMT Coarse, Fine, Extra Fine, Extra Extra Fine, then stropped on Hand American leather with 1 Micron buffing compound, then stropped on .5 micron buffing compound, and ended with plain leather. But the strops were homemade strops on hard backings, not razor strops in the traditional sense. I'm assuming that this set of materials is good enough, I'm just not spending enough time with proper technique on the EEF stones on up.

If the razor isn't dead sharp, you'll be using pressure to hold it against your face when shaving -- without pressure, it won't cut hair. That pressure is a prime cause of razor burn -- the edge goes through the protective layer of lather, and scrapes skin.

To test:

. . . Try shaving with just enough pressure to squeegee the lather off your face.

If the razor cuts beard off when you do that, it's probably sharp enough. If it doesn't -- lather comes off, beard is left behind -- it's probably dull.

Razors are really delicate creatures compared to knives. The bevel angle is much less, and the edge has to be treated very gently during honing.

I don't know the grit sizes of the DMT stones. But the usual advice here is to run the sequence down to an 8K grit (or finer), and polish the edge with _no pressure_ (or very light pressure) on that stone. Then go to CrOxide and other pastes, and hone.

I suspect -- since the DMT's have a reputation for being very aggressive -- that you're using too much pressure on the DMT XXF, and leaving deep gouges in the edge. And they're not being removed by the following stropping steps.

Charles

PS -- since I don't own any diamond hones, take all this with a grain of salt.