Thread: Pressure!

Thanks for the quick reply guys.

I thought id go ahead and do pressured honing for a bit, followed by normal light honing on each stone.

Just had a shave with it and it turned out an almost BBS shave! (On my neck and cheeks that is as I'm growing a beard for now).

Cant help but think though that I've almost kind of cheated. From what you seem to be saying, i need to grind down the parts where there is a lot of hone wear in order to level everything up? Then that should produce a bevel that can be honed normally and not needing pressure to hit all spots?

You don't need to do anything. If what you are doing gives you a good shave, then by all means, stick to it. It could probably be even better if you were able to accomplish your final honing with very light pressure, but maybe that last %ile doesn't matter to your face; what might be considered acceptable or even good edges can be a very individual thing.

If you have heavy hone wear already I'd suggest maybe trying the narrow stone approach and do your honing that way. The narrower the stone, the easier it is for it to make full contact with a blade that isn't perfectly straight. That way you don't have to remove a lot more steel or make the hone wear really huge.

I can't think of a reason to use pressure on a razor, or any edge on that matter, other than save time on honing, as the particles dig deeper in the edge.
In that case, why won't you use a slightly coarser stone to do that? And you can also warp the blade this way, with frowns and smiles appearing out of nowhere, and on completely flat stones.
If you think that you need to apply pressure on your 1k stone, try a few more passes on your 500. For the rest of your stones, don't use pressure. The weight of the razor and your fingers/a finger, again without pressure on it, is more than enough.
That is for stones on the 1k or a bit lower grit. For the higher grit stones, pressure is useless. Have a pretty basic arsenal with a stone or two between the bevel setter and finisher, and with some experience everything works out every single time.

Edit; I forgot to mention slurry. If you need to speed up things, instead of pressure you can also use some slurry, usually made with a diamond plate.

It's never good, it is almost never (I say almost because of certain restoration techniques) necessary, and also, this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuzmub5PXNQ

Haha i had that song in min when i wrote this.

for now, it works. Therefore i will leave it like that.

However, on its next visit to the hones, i will see if i can get it nice and flat on the coarse hones then go from there nice and light, as usual.

Thanks to you all.

Originally Posted by trenchy

Haha i had that song in min when i wrote this.

for now, it works. Therefore i will leave it like that.

However, on its next visit to the hones, i will see if i can get it nice and flat on the coarse hones then go from there nice and light, as usual.

Thanks to you all.

Sounds like some good self help advice and don't get caught up in the discussion. It has gone somewhat off road :<0)

Originally Posted by Vasilis

I can't think of a reason to use pressure on a razor, or any edge on that matter, other than save time on honing, as the particles dig deeper in the edge.
In that case, why won't you use a slightly coarser stone to do that? And you can also warp the blade this way, with frowns and smiles appearing out of nowhere, and on completely flat stones.
If you think that you need to apply pressure on your 1k stone, try a few more passes on your 500. For the rest of your stones, don't use pressure. The weight of the razor and your fingers/a finger, again without pressure on it, is more than enough.
That is for stones on the 1k or a bit lower grit. For the higher grit stones, pressure is useless. Have a pretty basic arsenal with a stone or two between the bevel setter and finisher, and with some experience everything works out every single time.

Edit; I forgot to mention slurry. If you need to speed up things, instead of pressure you can also use some slurry, usually made with a diamond plate.

I will just say I disagree on this point. IMO some pressure is okay under certain conditions on higher grit stones but no more than the oft-mentioned "eraser" level pressure, and it needs to be reduced to "weight of the razor" pressure before moving on in a progression or calling the edge finished. I much prefer using a small amount of pressure when finishing with certain stones so as to get the same sort of effect that taping the spine gives - after honing with some pressure and switching to very little the work is concentrated at the apex this way and the job is done faster and it gives really great edges. This isn't necessary for all stones though - mostly I use it when doing dilutions from slurry since many times natural stones barely cut on straight water without slurry, and the tiny bit of convexing often needs to be removed to get a true edge.

Originally Posted by eKretz

I will just say I disagree on this point. IMO some pressure is okay under certain conditions on higher grit stones but no more than the oft-mentioned "eraser" level pressure, and it needs to be reduced to "weight of the razor" pressure before moving on in a progression or calling the edge finished. I much prefer using a small amount of pressure when finishing with certain stones so as to get the same sort of effect that taping the spine gives - the work is concentrated at the apex this way and the job is done faster and it gives really great edges. This isn't necessary for all stones though - mostly I use it when doing dilutions from slurry since many times natural stones barely cut on straight water without slurry, and the tiny bit of convexing often needs to be removed to get a true edge.

Of course, it's ok to use some pressure. But as you said, "to get the job faster" or the "convexing", i.e. (micro)bevel, that needs to be removed. You can do that with a coarser stone, thicker slurry or more laps.
Also, by diluting the slurry, there is not a huge difference in edge refinement, as long as you've removed the scratches of the previous stone, and, unless you are using the "one stone honing" method after the 1k, don't sweat about it.
It's more of a habit than a ritual that has to be performed to get the extraordinary edge by my opinion. Indeed, some stones are extremely slow, and that's why we use slurry and/or a lot of elbow grease.
Every stone is different, and given enough time, you can learn it's tricks, but, honing is science. There are nothing mystical about it, the stones or the razors.

No the tiny convexing I'm talking about is created by the finishing stone. Is on a small level, but if one then switches to straight water, many natural stones no longer have enough cutting power to take the bevel down far enough to reach the apex. Using a small amount of pressure when honing with slurry and then using almost none with straight water accomplishes the same thing that a long protracted slurry dilution does, but in 1/4 the time.

My objection was with your statement that pressure is useless on finishing stones. It sounds like you've changed your mind? Or maybe I misunderstood your earlier post.

I don't think anyone is claiming there is any mysticism involved, not sure why that came up.

Originally Posted by eKretz

I will just say I disagree on this point. IMO some pressure is okay under certain conditions on higher grit stones but no more than the oft-mentioned "eraser" level pressure, and it needs to be reduced to "weight of the razor" pressure before moving on in a progression or calling the edge finished. I much prefer using a small amount of pressure when finishing with certain stones so as to get the same sort of effect that taping the spine gives - the work is concentrated at the apex this way and the job is done faster and it gives really great edges. This isn't necessary for all stones though - mostly I use it when doing dilutions from slurry since many times natural stones barely cut on straight water without slurry, and the tiny bit of convexing often needs to be removed to get a true edge.

Nope , quite the opposite. The lighter the presure the more your honing wil concentrate on the apex & mimic using tape.

Pressure will always flex the razor & hone the bevel more than the edge.