Thread: My Secret Shame

I think Jim/his barber is right on this. We know garnet is harder than steel- so they wouldn't be broken down. I also seem to remember the garnets are actually quite large (certainly not .5 micron). So using a slurry with that is honing with large particles, leaving them buried reduces their effective size. Correct? With the J-nat if the slurry is breaking down, and polishing very slowly, while it may round the very edge a little I bet it wouldn't hurt it as much as a coticule with heavy slurry. And the particles would get finer and finer right?

Originally Posted by khaos

I think Jim/his barber is right on this. We know garnet is harder than steel- so they wouldn't be broken down. I also seem to remember the garnets are actually quite large (certainly not .5 micron). So using a slurry with that is honing with large particles, leaving them buried reduces their effective size. Correct? With the J-nat if the slurry is breaking down, and polishing very slowly, while it may round the very edge a little I bet it wouldn't hurt it as much as a coticule with heavy slurry. And the particles would get finer and finer right?

Hrm, I don't dispute the idea of slurry breaking down and getting finer, but I still don't see how it couldn't round the edge significantly during the process.

When I get moved and settled in, I am going to buy a large, lighted magnifying lens and do some research into this myself. It still seems wrong somehow, I just can't explain HOW yet.

I too have trouble believing it- I think it is still rounding it- but to a smaller radius. Arbitrary numbers- lets say garnet rounds it to radius 1 micron. That's obviously too round/flat to shave. but what if the tip roundign was .1 micron? Maybe thats sharp enough? Maybe thats why its so comfortable- its sharp enough to cut, yet round instead of acute? A microscope would be very interesting in this case.

unfortunately, I don´t think a microscope would help on that.
What angle would you choose to look at the edge to be able to see a rounding?
What would you be looking for? Even a 3.000$+ optical microscope won´t help much.
Verhoeven made some scanning electron microscope pictures of razors
and even there you just can´t tell if its rounded, or not.
And the angle measurement by laserbeam wouldn´t tell either.
Rounding is nearly impossible to proove

Originally Posted by Lesslemming

unfortunately, I don´t think a microscope would help on that.
What angle would you choose to look at the edge to be able to see a rounding?
What would you be looking for? Even a 3.000$+ optical microscope won´t help much.
Verhoeven made some scanning electron microscope pictures of razors
and even there you just can´t tell if its rounded, or not.
And the angle measurement by laserbeam wouldn´t tell either.
Rounding is nearly impossible to proove

I can see it in these pics that Zowada took: http://www.tzknives.com/razoredges.html

and if you hold a razor up to strong light, and look closely at the edge, you can see if it looks "dulled" or rounded, if you know what to look for: to me it's more of a change in bevel scratches as it tapers to the point, not some sub micron radius per se. Also, a visible edge is a lousy edge.

I can´t see it.
And I can´t see it on the other pictures,
where Tim used a coticule with heavy slurry
-> straight scratches

Under large magnification you see a lot of things in different perspectives,
sometimes things appear further away, because they are not in focus and so on.
Interpreting high res magnified pictures is pretty hard to do
But maybe you will find a way to do it