Thread: barber hone grit

tried to touch up my razor with a couple of different hones i have and didn't have any luck. i've got a Franc Swaty Yugoslavian hone and a Winner combination hone both of which i have lapped with wet dry up to 1500 grit. After 5 or 6 passes ( tried the swaty first) i looked at the edge with a 30x loupe and notice scratches on the edge that weren't there before. the winner hone didn't improve it just added to it. should a barbers hone leave a shiny edge? or is there something else i need to do to lapp it? i was hoping to use these as my finishing hone once i start into the adventure of honing my own razors.

one of the things that could be happening is if your razor was honed with tape it would have a very slight change in angle. To make it the same angle you would need to figure that one out. Or use tape and maybe get it right maybe get a micro bevel.

@tintin
Yes some of the "higher grit" stones can leave a mirror finish on the bevel...

You have to check some of the boards around which are the "good ones"...there are a lot of stones around which have lower grit and can sometimes used to create/recreate a bevel...

Shininess of the edge is not a reliable test. The shaving is the test you have to try, and that's the only thing that matters. Give your razor a stropping, and try it.
I have a sigma 13k stone. It leaves the "mirrorest" finish I have ever seen from stones, with HHT. But I don't like its edge, as is. And, I have stones that leave a matte/haze finish, but give edges that doesn't even need stropping for a nice shave.
If your goal is shave readiness, don't mind the looks of the edge.
If your razor has a good bevel, the swaty is all you need.

A Swaty is perfectly capable for touching up a razor, but it is a pretty aggresive hone, so don't do a lot of strokes on it, try 4-5 light strokes first, strop and shave. If it's not quite there repeat and shave.
As Vasilis said, reflectin has nothing to do with how it will shave, so don't worry about the scratch pattern, pay more attention to your stroke pressure and proper stropping.

A few questions...

When you refer to scratches on the "edge," are you referring to the actual edge with small chips in it or do you mean the bevels, which are the two planes that merge to form the edge?

Did you ever try to use the hones BEFORE lapping them?

Did you use the hone dry, with water, or lathered water?

Was this your first time honing?

Who cares what it looks like....how did it shave?

As for the shine on your bevel, generally speaking, a synthetic stone will leave more of a shine than most naturals. There are exceptions but a shiny bevel indicates it may have been honed on a synthetic stone. Again, this is not the case in every case but oftentimes is. YMMV.

The more stones you own, the more experimenting you can do regarding "shiny".

Originally Posted by Utopian

A few questions...

When you refer to scratches on the "edge," are you referring to the actual edge with small chips in it or do you mean the bevels, which are the two planes that merge to form the edge?

Did you ever try to use the hones BEFORE lapping them?

Did you use the hone dry, with water, or lathered water?

Was this your first time honing?

I mean scratches on the bevel.
I never tried them before lapping.
I used them with lather.
I have honed one razor at a gathering in January and it is one of my best shavers though i haven't used the barbers hones yet.
It didn't seem to effect the quality of the shave much either way.

I see two possible problems that you may not have thought about.

1. Are deep scratches forming in the bevel, due to microscopic high spots left on the hone?

2. Is a wire edge forming due to too many passes on an aggressive barber hone?

I had both problems after lapping my strop backed barber hone. It is a ~15k hone but was preforming around 6k. To solve the first problem I lapped the barber hone to 2k on wet and dry paper then burnished on an arky. This is basically the same process as in Translucent Prep. Once the hone was properly lapped/burnished I was able to get good ~15k touch up results in no more than 4 passes. Mine is a little to aggressive for honing.

The Second problem can be solved by learning the quirks of your hone, after the first is solved.

Jonathan