Thread: Flattening Glass Plate....

Now you're making me chuckle. Chortle even.

Just some food for thought here really don't have a dog in this fight,, Don't really like Films all that much

It is an accepted practice to insert a sheet of paper under the final finish film or even the last two..

Seems to me that this would negate the entire theory of "How Flat is Flat" when you are intentionally introducing "Cushion / Flex" into the equation to attain a smoother edge..

Although I see where you're both coming from, not really in this specific case, as the amount that the "bad" glass plates were out of flat was far more than the thickness of a sheet of paper. Mine were close to .008" out as well as being very twisty. And the .03" - or almost 1mm (.039") that was mentioned as acceptable is nearly 10x the thickness of the average sheet of paper. For me, a .005" out of flat surface is the maximum deviation from flatness I would consider acceptable for honing a razor on, and only if it was a regular curve, not twisted or undulating.

Personally I don't much care for film edges either, but I did try them for quite some time just to give them a fair shake. Flatness is certainly more critical on stones if one must go from stone to stone in a progression. Otherwise the stone won't contact the blade in the same place as you switch stones. Not super critical on the coarse stones but more so on the fine stones that don't have the cutting power to reshape the steel. As the honing surface remains the same throughout a film progression it is certainly less critical but still not something I would ignore. Especially if the razor will ever be honed later on a stone, or as I mentioned earlier, there may be a good bit of extra work to do straightening things out.

Originally Posted by eKretz

Have you ever even lapped a piece of glass to use for lapping film? Have you even checked a few to see if they were reasonably flat? I thought not. Maybe you should limit your utterances to subjects you actually have experience with rather than insults to people you don't even know.

Hey eK
You are absolutely right. I have never lapped glass (unless it held booze). I shave with an old razor and hone it with an even older hone. I'm certainly ignorant on the topic of honing which is why I read about it on the forum; it is interesting. My remarks were snide and uncalled for. I apologize.

Hmmmm not really

I understand the idea of "Flat" and some people's OCD about it honest I do, if any one understands being obsessive it is me

But unless you are doing the exact same stroke straight down the hone/plate (You can't, it's physically impossible) the amounts of absolute you are discussing mean nothing...

Think it through before you disagree, the unevenness of a human honing stroke, and the FACT that you are not honing over the exact same spot every time negates the the minor unevenness of the Stone/Hone/Plate Don't take this to reductio ad absurdum I am not talking dished hone here I am saying Flat enough, is Flat enough...

This is one reason why we use the X-stroke in the first place, it helps to keeps the bevel even between three imperfect things

1. The human error
2. The hone error
3. The razor error


ps: By adjusting the stroke and the pressure you can easily hone on a Rounded Dished hone, but I agree the most flat it is the easier it is

I don't disagree with any of that. But the glass in question was not a regular and uniform dished shape. If it were it wouldn't be as much of an issue, agreed. My main issue is I like to be able to go from hone to film to whatever medium without adding extra work for myself.

In a case such as the pieces of glass that I got, they did not come close to hitting uniformly across an edge that was finished on a flat stone - that's how I found that the glass was so far out in the first place. Initial honing on a 12u film only hit in a few places, and at differing parts of the bevel. Like many others, I had assumed the glass would be flat enough as is. It wasn't, so I flattened it. I could have done a non standard stroke to hit all along the edge also, but that's not the way I do things unless I have to. Say on a razor that has a bent spine, et. al.

You agree that it's less effort and work as well as easier to hone on a flat surface - that subsequent honing on a flat surface like a stone would be easier and less work if the glass was flat is all I was saying in the first place. I mentioned that in my first or second post in this thread IIRC.