Thread: with a can do atitude

I bought this
and I need advice on how to hone with these stones 800,3000,6000,10000 grit but for a sharpening machine
but I've been told it's not possible , should I

Those are relatively thin stones made for the Apex Pro sharpening system. I can see someone put this kit together to sell because of the, again, relatively high profit margin in doing so.
Unless your a seasoned honemeister, you'd have a hell of a time using those stones. And, we don't know if the seller has already ground down the bulging and obtrusive shoulder which inhibits sharpening on them anyway.
Can you return it?
But, if you must, I would be focusing all my energies on keeping the blade flat on the stone doing light x strokes. But, I don't recommend it.

No already shipped too much hassel bought it for 28 bucks but wanted to try straight razors

Darn! I'm sorry...
Well, you could return it on his dime if the shoulder of the Gold Dollar has not been modified. Then it would be a defective set.
Don't let this discourage you, we've all made purchases that in retrospect wish we hadn't.
There are plenty of fish in the sea!

Too bad you had not come to SRP first off. We would have prevented you from buying such a set in the first place.

It would probably be possible with some practice, I like narrow hones but those are very narrow. You will have to be very aware of angles and pressure. Find a few junk razor and see what happens

Should have asked first, not after the fact. You didn't need to buy any of those stones to try shaving with a straight razor.

I'd have steered you toward Straight Razor Designs for a Dovo, which Lynn & co. would send to you ready to shave out of the gate, and a better strop. Or if you wanted to save some on the razor, a beginner's razor from the classified section here, or sight unseen razor from Whipped Dog would also be good as they would come shave ready. Whipped Dog also has OK strops that aren't too spendy.

But you've got what you've got so let's rifle down the list.

That Gold Dollar isn't going to be shave ready. In fact the grinds are notoriously poor and it may need reshaping. If you look at post 1 here:

http://straightrazorpalace.com/honin...-question.html

You will see circled on that vintage blade the areas that will be in question on your razor. The shoulder (top circle) will need to be nibbled down a tick so it doesn't ride up on the hones, and you'll probably want to re-profile the heel, and make sure the edge follows the spine (make me smile thread). To re-shape the heel you'll want to take a coin, pennies work well, and draw a circle on the heel such that you nibble away enough of that stabilizer to make honing possible. This all needs to be addressed before honing or you may never get an edge on it (and is why we strongly recommend either a Dovo at least, or a restored vintage from the classifieds here).

http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...-me-smile.html

The strop will need inspection. If it isn't smooth untreated leather, you'll have to sand the fuzz off until it gets down to smooth untreated leather. I'd probably suggest getting it damp and sanding the fuzz off with 120 grit sand paper, then working your way up to 600 grit once you get at the good stuff. Having neatsfoot, mink, or ballistol oil on hand would also be good. Let it dry a few days, then give it a light coat of oil. Let that soak in a few more days and you (might) have a strop you can use.

I wouldn't trust that diamond paste on any of my razors. Good diamond spray runs about what that entire kit does, food for thought. I'd deposit it in the dust bin, or at the very least put it away until I was proficient with stropping. A lot of new guys wreck a few edges with plain linen and leather before they get the hang of it. Adding paste into the mix may exacerbate that issue.

The hones themselves will all need to be lapped flat, and shoulders rounded or beveled just a tiny bit. Don't over do it with the rounding/bevel since they're already thin hones. You can use sand paper on a piece of tile, glass, or a cookie sheet to get the hones flat.

Get magnification, a cheap 30x jeweler's loupe will do. You can also go with 60 to 100x, but really won't need more than that. Follow this thread:

http://straightrazorpalace.com/honin...ggestions.html

You'll start at 800, go until the bevels meet. Then jump to the 3K. You'll probably spend a LOT of time at this stage making sure all the scratches from that 800 grit stone are gone. There's a reason we suggest 1K stones for bevel setting, and generally avoid cheap Chinese hones. It says 800 grit, but the binder is probably soft, hence cheap, and they tend to be coarser than advertised. The 3000 grit is most likely more of a 2000 grit hone for example.

And that brings us to our '6000' and '10000' grit stones. These look to be naturals. The green stone I know for certain is, and the white looks like the other color variant I've seen of the same 'jade green' honing stone. Any grit rating applied to them is questionable at best. Progress on them is going to be slow as molasses, and coming off of what will likely amount to a 2K stone very time consuming to erase the 2K stria. If I remember right, that green stone was tested and found to be excruciatingly slow, but also very fine when lapped and polished up properly. I'd say the surface should be buffed up to 1K or 2K grit sand paper at least to turn it into a solid finishing stone. They're also hard so you'll probably want to start with 80 or 120 grit paper and work up from there.

I'd probably just invest in a King 1/6 and keep the green stone for finishing. The other 3 I'd relegate to knife duty if I spared them from the round file.

That's the short list of where I would start if I had nothing else to work with but the kit in hand. Or save yourself a whole lot of work and headache and refer to the underlined bits.

I bought a de razor with a whet shaving kit had few Rands left and because I had little options in south africa I thought it was a steal but I should have done home work but with a good atitude I will try my best to get results and ill buy better stones but ill wait another month and a half for it to arive .If I switch to virtical strokes with the blade in line with the stone
like the razor is lying in the picture

You got yourself quite a challenge here. The strop should be OK. Dovo and other razor paraphernalia manufacturers sell identical ones with their names on them.
Gold Dollar razors get mixed reviews here. Apparently they are of hit and miss quality.
I cannot comment on the hones as I don't know them. If they are of good quality, and the given grit sizes reflect the true grit size you should be able to hone with them.
The big challenge with narrow hones is to keep the razor flat on the hone all the time. You may need to chamfer the edges.
There's plenty info on here on how to hone, I recommend you do X-patterns only.
http://straightrazorpalace.com/srpwi...uide_to_Honing

Good luck!