Thread: Extending the time between honings

Besides the obvious prevention of not honing the blade down for extended life of the razor and the idea that some might find honing difficult, what if any, is the advantage to "going to the hone as little as possible". I've seen some references to this in some of the older books and readings. I assume it was a pain for guys to get their razors honed but was/is there some other aspect to it? I'm asking because I'm sensing, just slightly, that a razor seems to get smoother and smoother shaving as it gets further away from the day it was honed. Right after honing it feels a little tough for a while...I usually do some aggressive stropping until it cools down...anybody else notice this? Anybody conciously avoid the hone for as long as possible, and if so, why?

Dang it...I put this in the wrong forum...

I noticed the same thing. The razor is indeed acting up when freshly honed, and improving the edge the second shave. But I don't try to delay honing. When it's dull, simply go to the stone for 5-6 N8K swipes. I do that every 7-10 shaves.

Nenad

I think in the old days people viewed straight shaving like a convict views a ball and chain around his ankle so the less they had to mess with it the better even if it meant getting a less than stellar shave. Also the products then were less user friendly than now.

Personally when it needs honing it gets honed, no big deal. And yea the shave always improves about the second time after honing.

Ok...time for me to chime in here...

I, too, have noticed that the first shave or sometimes two after a trip to the hone is less than enjoyable. The razor is harsh and doesn't feel right the entire time. The next time might be better but often it isn't until the third shave with the blade that things become that zen comfortable enjoyable kick ass take 3 full passes and a 30 minute shave experience that makes me love this silly thing so much. Therefore, here is my question for you guys...

Why EXACTLY is the razor mean the first time and better thereafter? What changes are made by a shave? Is there a way to atrifically make that change without the rugh experience? A pasted strop? A finer hone? A leather belt on a grinder? I'm still ghetto shaving (shaving on the cheapo) stropping on linen rather than leather with an ebay razor honed on a spyderco instead of a Norton to the tune of a whopping overall price of about $35...but my results have been good so far. I'm just wondering if the tools are really that important because they haven't been that necessary so far.

The tools aren't that important with the exception of a strop but, you can try stropping on any leather and that would be an improvement. Stropping on linen does the same thing, just not as well refined. Also, stropping on your outstretched palm may work too. Although I don't know the answer to your question yet I have my suspicions that its not the 3 shaves that do all the smoothing out (although they are likely beneficial). I'm a strong advocate of Occam's razor theory (the simplist answer is correct) and I am now getting smoother results by stropping 90 passes before shaving, as opposed to 30 passes before each of 3 shaves. Additionally, shaving itself is thought to "strop". But right now I'm looking into additional stropping prior to the first shave as the answer, that being the simplist reason to explain this phenomenom.

Just my two cents here,

I believe what is happening is that the leather smoothes the high, sharp ridges on the blade striations (scratch pattern).

The honing which creates the scratch pattern is all about sharp angles The striations have a size. Length, width and height of each part of the fin. It is the high point that would be smoothed over (rounded) by stropping.


Next time I will try AFDavis11 method of stropping and see if it calms down the razor's edge.

Now I'm confused...I have been consistantly stropping my blade 100 times (thats 100 counting 1-2, 2-2, 3-2, 4-2, etc) after each honing. I'm actually VERY pleased with the results I'm getting honing with my Spyderco Sharpmaker and hearing that the norton suffers similar issues in the honing area as my Spyderco makes me happy not to spend the dough on another sharpnening method. I hone 20-30 passes (again 1-2-, 2-2, 3-2) on the course sticks (no idea what grit they are and can't find any info online) and 10-15 on the fine sticks followed by 40-50 passes on a canvas material that is quite rough followed by 100 passes on a fine linen material. I was under the impression that the canvas would be MORE aggressive than leather and would therefore smooth things over faster than the leather would leaving the refining work to the leather strop. What's the deal here? Should I REALLY spend all that money on a leather strop?

I can tell you that lately I've been shifting my honing routine from the norton 4K/8K then Kitayama 12K to the Norton 4K then the yellow Coticule then the 12K and now I'm finding that after the yellow coticule the 12K seems to actually deteriorate the edge. After finishing with the yellow the initial shaves are far better (no roughness).

I'm about to start the second phase of the grand experiment in the honing section where I'm trying to demonstrate if additional honing is better. After completing phase one I can tell you I stropp 60x before shaving every time.

Some razors seem harsh after being honed and some are very good. I never use the linen after honing so I have thought that only using the leather doesn't calm down the edge. Most razors get better by the second or third shave. The honing should last for several months. I typically strop 50 round trips after honing then do the hanging hair test.

Glen

Gawker, I'm confused also, mostly by why your confused. Canvas is different then linen. I see the leather as the final and finest of the stropping options. Linen is courser and should provide the rough stropping and leather the final stropping. I've never used canvas. Its stropping abilities would be based on the material construction which I can't see from here. These are my beliefs but there is atleast one guy I remember from about 2 years ago that sweared he got better refinement from linen and he used linen last. Although none of us ever found that to be true. If your getting good results keep at it. But generally I use linen first for "gross" alignment and leather last for "refinement" of my edge. It sounds to me like we are saying the same thing but its 4 am again and who knows. I'll check again tonight...LOL