Thread: How sharp is sharp?

Hahahaha. Scratches or no scratches. Too sharp or not sharp enough. Pastes or no pastes. Blahhh. Play with your own equipment men! I have a challenge for anyone that cares to rise to the occasion. Here it is- you show me a picture of a tomato and I will show you a picture of a tomatoe!

Just going to take one minute to make a point about the whole Stria/Striation/Mirror Bevel Theory...

Now lets go read through the 10's of 1000's of threads in the Hone and Honing sections just on SRP, more if you include the other forums..
Note that by a huge margin those that hone will say that the Natural stones et al,,, but Japanese, Escher's and Coticule's in particular, will give a "Smoother" feeling shave to the face
Note that these stones also impart a much more Stria filled bevel

Call them Stria. Striations, Haze, or Scratches but by a majority of honers, they don't seem to count all that much for smoothness on the face,,
Add in the Linen and Leather strops and the scratches multiply exponentially ...

Just looking at what people have posted over the years, don't argue with me about it, go discuss it with them

Also , the reason Jnats appear to give striae free finishes is by their virtue of causing various sized striae that are not angular.
It's a natural, right ? The grit is not 100% even.

That nice hazy kasumi finish is just a mess of different sized scratches albeit small ones from a quality stone. The eye looks for uniformity & is tricked into believing it, like people who think polishing to the nth degree will give them a better shave.

Silly me. I was under the impression from all the reading I have done (old school and new) that the tiniest part of the edge worked best when it was somewhat jagged. In fact the direction you hone and strop had a lot to do with these tiny jagged edges. With the hair shaft structure the way it is it would be easier to cut by getting under the layers of structure that make up the shaft with the jagged edge. Skin on the other hand loves to be cut with smooth. I would say too sharp is when the edge is too smooth and it cuts the skin better than it cuts the hair. I do mean the very edge. The bevel on the other hand feels better the more smooth it is but then this all depends on the face and the hand adding the pressure. Not to mention the type of steel and how it was processed. I have noticed that the sharper I get an edge the lighter the pressure needed to do the job. Not easy to change up when you are used to a certain level of sharpness. What does all this lead to in conclusion ? Nothing, except to point out again that the amount of variables leave the OP with many answers. Do what works best for you on your path to a perfect shave. Find out what your "too sharp" is and back off. If it was all cut and dry we wouldn't have anything to discuss. It is good to see the perspectives you each have. It opens mine to change sometimes.

Originally Posted by 10Pups

Silly me. I was under the impression from all the reading I have done (old school and new) that the tiniest part of the edge worked best when it was somewhat jagged. In fact the direction you hone and strop had a lot to do with these tiny jagged edges. With the hair shaft structure the way it is it would be easier to cut by getting under the layers of structure that make up the shaft with the jagged edge.

I'm not clear about the word "jagged". Almost sounds like stropping is undesirable ?

Just a heads up, the video that was posted, and posts that included it in the 'reply with quote' have been deleted because the vid included a link to the producer's honing business. IOW, spam. Regretful that it had to be a commercial promotion instead of a informational video but that's show biz.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Going back to scratch patterns as a gauge of when a razor is 'there.' When I first came around to SRP there was a group of guys that were always talking about how it was necessary to remove all of the previous scratches as you progressed through to higher, and higher, grits. About that time, I had begun learning to hone, and was buying ebay razors to practice on. At the same time I was buying razors from Lynn and some of the other experienced, and reputable, honers in the community.

Taking my trusty 40x eye loupe I quickly saw that Lynn and these other guys sent shave ready razors with visible, and varied, scratch patterns. So I saw that the 'removing all of the scratches from the previous stone' was not necessary for a shave ready edge, and I never pursued that method. Figuring that the purpose of honing, in my case, was to get a smooth and comfortable shave, not to admire how shiny the bevel sides might be. I'm not doubting that smoothness of the bevel could contribute to smoothness of the shave, but I never really pay any attention to scratch patterns per se. YMMV.

I always took the "remove previous scratches" thing to be a visualisation aid more than anything else. Something to help people understand why a honing progression was necessary. Just last night I was talking to a guy with 30 years knife sharpening experience - I'd given him a razor and he was having a go at sharpening it. He was going from a 6K synthetic to CrOx on linen and not having a lot of luck. The "striation" talk helped him understand I think.

As for the use of the word "striation", like anything in the English language it gets appropriated into various areas. Bodybuilders talk about striations for example. Sometimes what's more important than the word itself is the shared understanding of its meaning within a specific context. I think we all understand what we mean by the word in our context, and it is surely simpler to say than "the furrows imparted on the sides of the razor's edge by abrasive particulates present in a honing medium", though I suppose you could initialise that to FISREAPPHM!

And just one last word on scratches on the bevel. I don't use them to determine if an edge is shave ready, but I do acknowledge the idea that they start somewhere (the point at which the bevel begins on the body of the razor) and, most importantly, they end somewhere. They end on the edge, both sides. You got big chunky (relatively speaking) scratches on your bevel, you've got big chunky (relatively speaking) gaps in your edge. The smoothness of the bevel may not matter, but what that implies about the edge does, other things being equal.

James.

If you want to judge what you like before you start honing, try a feather de blade. If you like it, great, I dont and never really did, too harsh and too many weepers. Its an easy way to see before you go on a quest for the sharpest meanest edge you can find. When I used DEs I liked wilkinson swords that are much mellower and BTW still not smooth enough for me. YMMV as always.

Haven't most people who've studied sharpness v. comfort determined that an edge honed on finer than iron oxide typically results in more irritation?

Originally Posted by rkuchenbecker

Haven't most people who've studied sharpness v. comfort determined that an edge honed on finer than iron oxide typically results in more irritation?

You can't simply blame a honing medium for irritation. There are other contributing factors, razor , skin, honing skill, etc..