Thread: honing stainless

Hello, I have a Dovo Stainless steel that for the last 10 years has been an ordeal to sharpen and use- I've spent hours using my water stones-. Lots of burning, and less than close shave. Yesterday I picked up an old DePew that looks like it's carbon. I worked slowly on water stones (same as my SS Dovo) but only 5-10 min : 800, 1000 and 2400. I did the shave-zigs-face test and it was incredible. Very close with only mild burning ( went over too often b4 I remembered to relather ) and 3 cuts using left hand. Anyway, I've read that Stainless isn't sharpened this quickly and that there's a special technique for stainless. I've only seen this difference refered to. Can anyone tell me the difference or direct me to directions for stainless sharpening?

Thanks for your replies,
Zig

Well pilgrim unless these are your first shaves with a straight you should not have any burning. Either your razors aren't shave ready or you using too much pressure on your face or doing too many passes so you should address that problem first.

As far as stainless goes there are no special techniques for honing stainless. I have 3 stainless razors, a puma, a dovo and a dorko and all three give outstanding shaves. The only advice I can give you with stainless is that since the metal is harder you just need to do more passes on the hone. If your sure the edge is in good shape and you have a good bevel you'll probably want to concentrate on the 8K or higher with an occasional pass on the 4K. You just need to experiment. There's no magic solution but I will tell you that if you can't get them sharp either they are in bad shape and fall into the realm of problem razors which need advanced skills or your technique in honing needs honing. Make sure you read all the help files here on honing before you try again.

If your still having problems let us know how many passes your using on what stones and what scheme your using (pyramid).

You may want to consider sending them out to one of the honemeisters here to get them initially sharp.

As I read your post it seems that you have the following hones,
an 800, 1000 and 2400. Is that correct? If so then you are missing the final piece of the puzzle, i.e. a fine grit hone with a rating of approx 8000. I assume the 2400 grit is rated according to the ANSI/CAMI standard and if so then it is approx 4000 grit on the JIS scale. So, what you need is a fine hone of approx 8000 grit. That should help take care of your problem.

Let us know,

I would agree that the stones you have are too course to obtain a smooth shave. For stainless when you don't have a Coticule or Polishing stone, you should try some .5 micron diamond paste. 10-15 strokes tops after the 8K should get that stainless to be a much more smooth a shaver.

Good Luck.

Lynn

You can also go with 0.5 micron chromium oxide. It gives me amazing shaves and they're extremely comfortable.