Quote Originally Posted by niftyshaving View Post
The glass plate makes a lot of sense each time the abrasive changes.

The limited give of the nanocloth and the uniform thickness of the cloth preserves that same flatness
which is a good thing. The slight give of cloth may compensate for some topology that his coarse diamond start
gives him that his hones do not quite remove. It might also account for the bright line that is a micro bevel.
The bright line is what whiskers see....

Of interest plate glass has some shallow waves in it that I did not expect. Shallow waves could be a good thing.

For faster cutting a light spray of CBN directly on glass works but will waste CBN and eventually
dish the glass. Spraying directly on glass is a lot like a slurry and does cut quickly. Playing with
slurry on glass is how I noticed the waves on my glass plates.

The nanocloth eliminates wasting CBN down the drain.

I played with abrasive film on glass for a long time and the precision of the edge and resulting edge
is way golly sharp. Pinnacle honing film is not longer available last I checked.

CBN cuts faster than diamond for some reason. CrOx also is a little bit faster than diamond but
harder to find in well sorted bits. CBN and diamond do not stain things...

Bottom line... how does it shave for you? For me 0.03micron film (push honing) is too sharp on the first shave
so I strop extra on felt and calm it or use a 10K - 15K hone instead.
Interesting point you bring up about plate glass. I know that glass is really a very viscous amorphous LIQUID, which is why you detect fine ripples in plate glass, because glass flows, albeit very slowly. I was thinking that the major inconsistency in uniform flatness would be from the razor edge, but you bring up the point that it may very well be the inconsistency in flatness of the plate glass. Even in light of what you described regarding plate glass, it still seems that a flexible nanocloth strop, not mounted on glass, would avoid the glass ripples, and compensate for any inconsistency in the razor edge topography.

Just for fun, I've got to try CBN spray directly on a glass plate. May be wasteful of the abrasive, but interesting.

Regarding shaving, since I have a full beard and don't shave, I'm into honing razors for fun and pleasure. I'm fascinated by the technological aspects of honing and sharpening metal in general. Its one of the very few simple techniques that is still not very well understood. Those poorly understood techniques are empirical, but work, and have passed the test of time. I find it very interesting to try to understand the process on a more technical/scientific understanding.