Thread: If you had to do it all over again — would you still have gotten an Escher?

Someone did one over at coti.be on a coti. The aim was to see what would happen and the count was somewhere around 1000IIRC (which was a week of evenings). Apparently it was a nice shave too. If anyone is interested a search should bring it up.

http://www.coticule.be/the-cafeteria/message/6270.html

http://www.coticule.be/the-cafeteria/message/16182.html

Even at a slow stroke rate of one stroke every two seconds, a thousand strokes only would take 2000 seconds, which is 33 minutes. If someone else wants to replicate this test I don't think it would take a week of evenings!

Originally Posted by Utopian

Even at a slow stroke rate of one stroke every two seconds, a thousand strokes only would take 2000 seconds, which is 33 minutes. If someone else wants to replicate this test I don't think it would take a week of evenings!

Yeah, I mixed up the comment. Someone did a week of honing and estimated about 10,000 or something, but I couldn't find a link to that/I may be incorrect on the number - so I just linked to the old 1000 stroke test.
Apologies if any inconvenience was caused.

I did try to overhone on 3 different stones. A coticule, a PHIG and an escher. I succeeded on all 3. It took between 400-600 round trip laps.
The laps will vary by person, razor, stone and the sharpness level you begin with.

I do not understand why people doubt this. No matter what stone you use you are removing metal. Eventually the edge will become to thin. It is only a matter of time.

I never understood the concept of overhoning. The only thing I can think of when they refer to it in the old manuals is forming a wire edge or burr. Second reason may be older razors could have a softer spine due to heat treatment methods. If your spine was softer than the edge, you could wear the angle down to suboptimal and make the edge more friable.
If a razor is honed additional strokes just remove more metal and you are just putting wear on your razor that is not needed. The edge will probably feel no different in shaving

Over honing exists. If you take an edge and make it thinner and thinner it'll eventually break down during a traumatic event such as shaving. Like Randy said, I am not sure why people doubt this.

Bevel angle steel etc. can vary so I am just tossing out numbers but if your apex of the 16' bevel is perfect [100%]it is to weak.

Stop at 98.6% or maybe 99.2%.

I have a fair number of Thuri's and have sold way more than I have now, All of them came from flea markets or antique stores for a few bucks each.
My latest one has 'part' of a label on the end. I need to practice more on them, but usually use my Synthetic progression most of the time.
Here are the ones I have now, one of these days I plan to shave test them all and pick out the best, sell the rest with disclosure, I have been saying that for a few years though.

Originally Posted by Disburden

Over honing exists. If you take an edge and make it thinner and thinner it'll eventually break down during a traumatic event such as shaving. Like Randy said, I am not sure why people doubt this.

Probably because most people either don't have a steady enough hand to completely max out an edge, are using a stone too coarse to thin the edge out that much, or simply don't have the patience required to do the number of strokes required to over hone a blade. To whit, they've never experienced an overhoned edge thus it 'doesn't exist.' Probably more accurate to say that it's hard to attain and thus a rarity.

Originally Posted by Badgister

Give someone who lusts over their genuine Escher or J-cup a rivalling edge using a barber hone and some paste, and the romance is quickly ruined.



No matter how expensive and exotic the finishing stone, the last treatment the razor gets is on plain leather.

Plain leather? Non, monsieur, Russian shell.

In any case, the action of a hone, and the action of a strop are rather different, no? A hone, no matter how fine, is removing material. A strop is aligning material. That is what I understood.