Thread: That shaped hone...

Originally Posted by thp001

A large part of the discussion around the convex hone has been quite unfortunate imo.

First you have the historicity of the idea itself, which I never really doubted, but I can see how some would as when asked for direct evidence Jarrod (let us address the man directly) would for the most part just allude to old grinding manuals, old books and pretty much just tell the skeptics to go do their own research. This is an inappropriate attitude to have when advocating for a position. I actually got into a discussion about this on YouTube with him, he would again just allude to the idea then when I pushed him hard enough to back up his claim he would then come back at me with some names of writers, or the name of a book, and when I checked them out they were legitimate.

Jarrod would have been much better served by, when learning about the convex hone, coming to the forum and writing a thorough, informative post, translating out the German like I am attempting to do, and being more lighthearted about the matter. Imagine if this whole thing had started out with a thread something like:

'Hey guys, Dovo told me about this convex stone they use, they said it goes way back. I looked up a whole bunch of old technical manuals and grinding documents and translated them out of German, take a look yourselves at these links, might improve our edges".

Maybe I am wrong but it doesn't seem he did that, but I think the idea would be more amenable to some had he.

Something else that didn't help him was this kind of insistence that the only real way to 'skin the cat' was the convex stone, that it is the only true way lest you pretty much ruin your razor. Now maybe the grinders in Germany would prefer users to maintain the factory geometry but they've never provided any tools to do such. We also have the fact that most people have used a flat or relatively flat hone to keep their razors in shape with no ill effects to the razor, or to the comfort of the shave. Now maybe, in theory, the convex would be preferable, it's just a pointless thing to be so assertive over. Insinuating that a substantial portion of razor honers are pretty much cognitive peasants for not immediately recognizing the 'superiority' of the convex hone isn't going to make people amenable to hearing you out, rightly or wrongly.

I think it's fair to give Jarrod his due for bringing to our attention a historic method of honing that could infer some advantage to the end user in the modern day. Some people have insinuated he pretty much made the whole thing up, or Dovo made it up to cover for recent production woes in regards to grinds/honing. This is obviously untrue and for such an accusation to stand would not be just.

The man is obviously passionate about the industry and the history of razors and their manufacture.

I'll try have another post up later today with a translation I found in a German Microscopy journal.

Keep it light everyone.

Sure I hear you. This when I stopped chasing the holy grail. Simple things like tape edge geometry grind etc were touted by some to be superior. I tested these various theories and ideas by take a blade with an inferior grind, bevel angle with or without tape by shaving with it. And then shaving with the "better" bevel angle, grind, with tape or without. If the second pass doesnt get anything(same pass as the first now) then its all minutiae. Smoothness is another story and is highly subjective. Nobody wants irritation or weepers. Now you have to know how to hone and you have to know how to use the razor to make this comparison. So if a method is touted as giving me a 1% advantage or a 200% advantage in sharp then its for nothing. Especially since I have no need for anything sharper. Even if the snake oil is valid, which in this case doesnt hold water. As a tiny deflection amounts to nothing. Ive been told "thinner is better". I have no issue with thinly ground blades. But with that logic a near wedge or heavy grind wont shave! Which is nonsense because they do. The fineness of the stone and the hand that does the honing has way more to do with the shave quality that a tiny deflection. So now that I have found I dont need it, its tiring when someone keeps telling me I do. Like the beard that gets cut off are imaginary whiskers. And another thing is why should I put 50 years of hone wear on a hard expensive stone? Just to see? Thats ok. I will pass. Having said that a convex stone should produce a good shaving edge, a flat stone should produce the same. A round cylinder made out of the right stuff would also with some practice. Its all a marketing attempt by a lonely guy who thinks he knows it all and everyone else is stupid.

Originally Posted by Bill31521

Sure I hear you. This when I stopped chasing the holy grail. Simple things like tape edge geometry grind etc were touted by some to be superior. I tested these various theories and ideas by take a blade with an inferior grind, bevel angle with or without tape by shaving with it. And then shaving with the "better" bevel angle, grind, with tape or without. If the second pass doesnt get anything(same pass as the first now) then its all minutiae. Smoothness is another story and is highly subjective. Nobody wants irritation or weepers. Now you have to know how to hone and you have to know how to use the razor to make this comparison. So if a method is touted as giving me a 1% advantage or a 200% advantage in sharp then its for nothing. Especially since I have no need for anything sharper. Even if the snake oil is valid, which in this case doesnt hold water. As a tiny deflection amounts to nothing. Ive been told "thinner is better". I have no issue with thinly ground blades. But with that logic a near wedge or heavy grind wont shave! Which is nonsense because they do. The fineness of the stone and the hand that does the honing has way more to do with the shave quality that a tiny deflection. So now that I have found I dont need it, its tiring when someone keeps telling me I do. Like the beard that gets cut off are imaginary whiskers. And another thing is why should I put 50 years of hone wear on a hard expensive stone? Just to see? Thats ok. I will pass. Having said that a convex stone should produce a good shaving edge, a flat stone should produce the same. A round cylinder made out of the right stuff would also with some practice. Its all a marketing attempt by a lonely guy who thinks he knows it all and everyone else is stupid.

I totally get you with the minutiae thing. You also have the balance of tradeoffs for any particular method of honing. Even if it was universally recognized that the convex hone creates a 'better' edge, or shave or whatever, one might still prefer the flat hone because it is much, much easier to maintain a flat hone than a convex one. Anyone can go grab a $5 tile or an off-cut from a kitchen countertop, a pack of sandpaper and keep a hone flat. If I want a convex hone, and more importantly, one that is consistent in it's convexity I have to have some very repeatable surface, which, unless you make it yourself means spending a reasonable chunk of change on a concave lapping plate. I also need a hone of sufficient thickness which unless one has quite a bit of money to spend on large naturals limits choice to synthetics.

The convex hone actually makes more sense in a production setting because you can impart any advantage, however small, to many, many razors, you have people trained in dressing the stones to a consistent shape. For someone at home with maybe a couple razors who just wants to keep them ticking along, the time and especially monetary investment isn't so obvious.

We can all spend exorbitant amounts of time and money chasing the best of any specific hobby. Audio is one example where you can spend hundreds of dollars just on cables. Now maybe the oxygen free, gold shielded copper wire they use transmits a purer signal than the cheap, electrical grade copper in the competitors. But if I can't tell, or the improvement in audio quality doesn't seem worth the $500 dollars I just spent cabling up my surround sound system, compared to the huge leap in quality I gained from just getting surround sound audio in the first place, it wasn't actually a good investment.

Again, the more amenable approach Jarrod should have taken was to say look, there are tradeoffs, more time initially, more investment, but I think the advantage is worth it, flat hones are cool too if it's too much however. Maybe have made some stones up for a pass-a-long on the forums.

The man can be abrasive but I try not to get too hung up on it tbh. I genuinely wish him the best.

Two issues if anything even works the way it is said to which I personally find doubtful, Prove it


#1 What makes you think a concave edge is better ??? A sharper more grabby edge ?? Almost all SR's are honed then stropped to a Convex edge for durability and comfort.. The best DE edges are ground to copy this convexity by using Micro beveling at a higher expense


#2 If it works so well why can't the "Masters" in Solingen honing every day manage to produce a Shave Ready edge,and actually now on Dovo manage to produce frowns

Kinda defeats the logic of the arguments now doesn't it


PS: Someday I am going to learn to just be quiet and let people screw up their edges, I make extra money fixing them...

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Two issues if anything even works the way it is said to which I personally find doubtful, Prove it


#1 What makes you think a concave edge is better ??? A sharper more grabby edge ?? Almost all SR's are honed then stropped to a Convex edge for durability and comfort.. The best DE edges are ground to copy this convexity by using Micro beveling at a higher expense


#2 If it works so well why can't the "Masters" in Solingen honing every day manage to produce a Shave Ready edge,and actually now on Dovo manage to produce frowns

Kinda defeats the logic of the arguments now doesn't it

This thread is more about the fact that it isn't just some idea out of the blue and has real historicity. Not really interested in the practical claims anymore it's been beaten to death imo. We'll all believe what we want to believe at the end of the day and that's totally fine.

Leitfaden zur Anfertigung Mikroskopischer Dauerpraparate 1893

Page 27

https://www.google.com/books/edition...v=1&bsq=konvex

In English

"The main thing always remains that once you have straightened your razors in good condition and especially with a sharp edge, if they have suffered too much from prolonged use, it goes without saying that you should hand them over to the sharpener for repair

Sharpening the knife is apparently something very easy, but only a few understand it well most of the sharpening their knives is not flat but convex so that the cutting edge is sharp but at the same time wedge-shaped, which means that the advantage of a thin, hollow-ground blade is lost again, that's why it's here Probably in place to deal with this subject in more detail"

In German

"die hauptsache bleibt immer dafs man seine rasiermesser wenn sie einmal bergerichtet sind in gutem zustande und namenlich bei scharfer schneide erhalt wenn dieselben durch anhaltenden gebrauch zu sehr gelitten haben so versteht es sich wohl von selbst dafs man sie dem schelifer zur wiederinstandsetzung ubergibt

das scharfen des messers ist num anscheinend etwas ganz leichtes aber nur wenige verstehen es gut die meisten schleifen ihre messer nicht flach sondern konvex so dafs die schneide zwar scharf aber zugleich auch keilformig ist wodurch der vorteil einer dunnen hohlgeschliffenen klinge wieder verloren geht est ist deshalb hier wohl am platze diesen gegenstand etwas eingehender zu benhandeln"

This topic and to tape or not tape a spine while honing have been done to death on this forum. Choose which ever way you want to do it from the copious amount of info on here already. It really does not matter a whit which one goes with so long as you are getting the results you want.

Bob

You can't sell stones and "special" lapping plates if nobody wants to talk about it.

Originally Posted by thp001

This thread is more about the fact that it isn't just some idea out of the blue and has real historicity. Not really interested in the practical claims anymore it's been beaten to death imo. We'll all believe what we want to believe at the end of the day and that's totally fine.

You might want to re-read this part again... I think you are missing it or your translation skills are lacking

In English

"The main thing always remains that once you have straightened your razors in good condition and especially with a sharp edge, if they have suffered too much from prolonged use, it goes without saying that you should hand them over to the sharpener for repair

Sharpening the knife is apparently something very easy, but only a few understand it well most of the sharpening their knives is not flat but convex so that the cutting edge is sharp but at the same time wedge-shaped, which means that the advantage of a thin, hollow-ground blade is lost again, that's why it's here Probably in place to deal with this subject in more detail"


This part too

Others go even further by giving the successive stones a different shape. In particular, an experienced man praised the following procedure as being very beneficial:

The translation is what came through Google Translate and some weak German I learned in highschool over 17 years ago. Yeah it ain't perfect but it paints the picture. You can take the translation literally if you want but that would be erroneous.

Who would you assume the 'experienced man' is being referenced in a Journal for German Technical Schools?

At the end of the quoted text: "he latter is found exclusively in use by knife manufacturers, knife sharpeners and barbers."

The Germans refer to a razor as Rasiermesser, literally razor-knife. I doubt the previous paragraph details the sharpening of razors until right at the last sentence when he suddenly switches to talking about kitchen knife makers.

There's enough here with my crappy translation to believe the idea wasn't invented 5 years ago.

Again everyone can make their own mind up. All the passages I'm translating are linked to and people can adjust as they see fit. If there is something wrong with my translation I invite you to correct it.

Here is the issue

Looking at 1000's of Dovo edges over the years shows none of this to be true , they simply lift the spine then drag it over the Convex hone creating a Frown

Over 60% have it

So the science falls apart in reality

I don't know or care who the Gentleman is

This has truly become the "Epitome of Stupidity"

There is one person pushing this for money, I wouldn't care other then that little dweeb involved me after I proved his "Hypothesis" to be flawed, and he started tagging me for Hits on YouTube..

I don't care who posts about it... I am going to continue to say the same thing

Prove It !!!


I have yet to even a Micro-graph even attempting to convince anyone of Concavity of the edge