Thread: Pyramid or Circle method for newbie?

That's a great question...I've been struggling with that one meself. What was the result?

Shaved with that razor for the first time since the hone and the shave was decent. Not as good as my professionally honed straight but not too bad. I think I can do better though. Will be playing with it further.

So now I have accepted that I need to move to the next step. After the last shave I re-honed my razor on the 8k Norton with 10 more laps. water displacement was pretty good on the stone and I do need to work on making my strokes smoother but I thought it went well. Looked at the edge under a machinist's loupe and it looks clean. Stropped it 75 laps and test shaved it again. Still not that sharp. The shave was pretty rough. no nicks or cuts but had to put too much pressure to get thru the hair. I think I will try the 1/3, 1/5 pyramid method next. Also, how much stropping do you recommend after a touch up hone?

Back in the day it was said that the #1 reason for a honed razor not being "there" was an inadequate bevel set. The foundation of the rest of the job. Perhaps check your bevel set. Not saying that is definitely the source of the problem, but I've found that starting from square one has worked for me with problem razors in the past.

The 1961 barber manual recommends stropping on leather only following honing. I don't recall a specific number of round trips, but I might do 30 or 50 ....... whatever. Speaking with Lynn not long ago, he does linen/leather following honing. I don't recall the number of passes. I started following suit, usually 50/50, but it is a matter of experimenting. All of this honing stuff is trail and error IME.

One of the hardest things for novice to learn is how to strop properly. It could very-well be you are refreshing the edge on the hone, but damaging it on the strop.

Put a layer of tape on the spine, if you taped originally, it put two. Do 4-6 laps on your highest grit stone and look at the edge. Are the bevels meeting?

If so, now strop it 30-50 laps, now look at the edge, did you damage it? If not shave it.

If you damaged the edge by stropping, it is either your strop or you technique. Keep the spine on the strop, go slow, and stop before you flip.

An extra layer of tape is a great, quick way to touch up an edge.

2-4 laps, creates a micro bevel, depending on the stone can make a very fine new Micro bevel and can be done 2-3 times, depending on the stone and edge. After that you will have to re hone completely to flatten the bevel and start over.

It only works if the edge has very little damage or micro-chips. Any more laps and you are just honing with 2 layers of tape creating a fatter angle and wider bevel. And some times, that is just what you need, like for an edge that is chippy or a very worn spine that has too steep an angle.

It works very well, with hard Arks, Thurigans slates, and even 12k super stones, any fine, high grit stone. On film, with paper, that is what you are doing, except you are creating a cushion/deflection where the edge of the bevel is being polished with less bite.

Update.
Major bummer!!

Last night I sat down with razor and hone with the mindset that I would be shaving with this razor "tonight". Well... didn't happen. And I admit that it was my ignorance that defeated me. I decided to give the 1/3 1/5 pyramid technique a whirl. On my first stroke with the 4k I hit a gritty spot on the stone about half way down and put a nick in the edge. DONE!!!!

Now before I get a "you have to lap a new stone" speech, I have already done that. But I will also admit that I only took .025" off the 4k side when I lapped it. Seems that the 4k side needs to have some more meat taken off and I need to start over with a bevel set. 1 step forward and 10 steps back. Now I seem to remember hearing from a certain someone that he recommends taking .125" off of the 4k side when new. I just couldn't bring myself to waste that much stone. Well talk about learning the hard way.

I felt defeated and beat down and had to resort to hair removal with my professionally honed razor.

But...... today is a new day.

One of the hardest things when learning how to hone and one of the things that will cause an edge to fail is using too much pressure. Not like you are already not having to learn to keep the spine and edge on the stone at the same time and use even pressure with either circles or X strokes, once the bevel is set, learning to use weight of the blade only pressure is key. It really is a balancing act to keep the blade flat on the stone and only push and pull it. This is really critical when refreshing and in the final steps of honing. Once you fix the nicks and reset the bevel, try to keep this in mind. The stones will do the work for you.

Another thought is that the more you try sometimes, the more frustrating it can be. When you hit this point, it is always better to walk away, even if only for a few minutes.

Have fun.

Thanks for the reply Lynn.

Having read your advice I am inclined to believe that this is my bad technique rather than an improperly lapped hone. It grabbed so aggressively that I just assumed it was a gritty spot. I have an idea. If I were to lightly stroke a precision machinists steel parallel, +/- .001 flat, down the length of the hone it might locate any possible rough spots, or prove that my technique just plain sucks. either way I MUST know.

I am far from being an expert but two things were suggested to me. A properly prepared hone will reflect light at a more or less 15° angle. No reflection - don't use. Second, no more weight on the blade as obtained from a butterfly. The third thing suggested was you'll never be perfect, keep learning.