Pyramid Shapton honing

I had an interesting experience with my Shapton 8000 and 16000 hones. I have a 7/8 W & B For Barber Use Only wide body that I was polishing some dark spots off the blade and I hit the edge with my buffing wheel. It was just enough to warrant touch up with the stones so I tried pyramiding between my Shappy 8000 and my Shappy 16000.

I did 10 passes each on the 8000/16000 stones then 5 each. I went 3/5 and 1/5 to finish. I stropped it 40 each on my cotton SRP strop/ Latigo leather strop/ English Bridle leather strop and the blade was HHT scary sharp. Shaving was a dream. Smooth and easy are the phrases of the day. I tried the same rotation on a Genco Heavy and a Torrey that I am selling with similar results. Has anyone tried this?

Thanks for your comments.
Best regards,
300WSM:gwh:

I guess I have stumbled upon something... and will discuss it with myself! What ever.... :boohoo:

I'm not using shapton's, so can't comment. As long as it's working...don't fix it!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 300WSM

I had an interesting experience with my Shapton 8000 and 16000 hones. I have a 7/8 W & B For Barber Use Only wide body that I was polishing some dark spots off the blade and I hit the edge with my buffing wheel. It was just enough to warrant touch up with the stones so I tried pyramiding between my Shappy 8000 and my Shappy 16000.

I did 10 passes each on the 8000/16000 stones then 5 each. I went 3/5 and 1/5 to finish. I stropped it 40 each on my cotton SRP strop/ Latigo leather strop/ English Bridle leather strop and the blade was HHT scary sharp. Shaving was a dream. Smooth and easy are the phrases of the day. I tried the same rotation on a Genco Heavy and a Torrey that I am selling with similar results. Has anyone tried this?

Thanks for your comments.
Best regards,
300WSM:gwh:

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what you are saying is confusing.
That is why we have to ask question to understand .
My problem is this.
Have you ever had professionally honed blade?
Do you know what is properly honed blade? It is not the scary sharp edge i would say now.
i know shapton 16 how acts that is why i am having trouble to believe to your experiment.
sorry i am not trying to be rude. This is the best way i can explain my feeling about your thread,
let me explain more.
You are saying your edge has been hit by buffing and you restored it just doing passes on 8 and 16k shaptons.
doesn't make sense. you should go at least 4k level and make a lot laps then you may got edge which you can take to 8k and 16k.
Then you are saying you got same result with 2 more razors. without telling early condition of the razor's i cannot say anything about this 2 blades.
gl

Actually, to me this makes perfect sense. Considering that the Pyramid method is an incremental method, what you did with these two stones is a good use of the technique. I'm betting if you use it for razors not needing a lot of work, it will continue to work well for you.

Please keep us posted.

Thanks,

Lynn

Gentlemen,
Thank you all for taking the time to comment on my discovery as I have not heard of this pyramid routine before including this fine forum. I will try to answer all of the questions posed to me.

gl - I have used quite a few razors honed by what you would call a "professional" including a very fine 7/8 W & B from Jimmy that was the best shaver I have tried so far in my brief straight razor experience (about a year now). This is the one I tried the 8000/16000 pyramid to restore the edge after using this fine razor in my daily rotation. It is not as smooth as Jimmy's honing job but it is close.

You are right about scary sharp not always being the best shave. I learned this as a professional meatcutter and butchering dozens of elk and deer. My knives carry a working edge. I know this does not necessarily translate to razors but I understand the concept. The Genco Heavy that I was speaking of gave me a tie for the best shave that I have experienced to date after the 8000/16000 pyramid and stropping. It was neck and neck to Jimmy's original honing of the W&B 7/8 and very smooth. The condition of the Genco before I tried this new pyramid method was restoring the edge after much use (on my barbed wire beard) and an exhausted CRO2 effort. The Torrey was in about the same condition. I am now trying this on an 8/8 B&S Cowvan I recently purchased. I had to reset the bevel on this one with a Shappy 1000. It is on to 4000/8000 pyramid and then I will try the 8000/16000 just for chuckles. I will keep you posted.

Lynn,
Thank you for your experienced observation as I thought the same thing. What makes pyramiding work with courser stones should work with finer ones as well. However, time and experience will tell. I will let you know what I discover.
Best regards,
Denny
300WSM :gwh:

This is why i put up that message.
You said on your original post you have hit the blade to buffer.
My understanding was if you hit the shave ready edge to the buffer that blade will have chips.
In this situation i didn't think you would be able to just use shapton 8/16k and make blade shave ready with just 44 strokes total.
I did ask Lynn about this and in fact you could just dull the edge without any chips etc.
in this case you could make edge shave ready.
This is all .
thank you for answering my questions. gl

gl,
Sorry for the misunderstanding. The razor was about due for a restore as I have used it steadily since I procured it from Jimmy. I was polishing a spot on the blade from an accidental water splash left overnight on the blade. I set my razors out with the blade open in a dry spot overnight after using them to be sure everything under the handles is bone dry. Somehow a drop of water dropped on the blade overnight in spite of my careful drying creating a darkened spot on this otherwise pristine blade. Being the anal individual that I am I was carefully polishing the blade length wise with the red finish stick and my cotton buffing wheel being careful to avoid the cutting edge. I thought I may have touched the edge with the wheel. I was not certain to be honest. If I did it was a light pass across the edge lengthwise and not into the edge. Since I needed to restore it anyway I tried the method that I described to you in my original post. I did not want to bore anyone with a lengthy diatribe but because of the misunderstanding (this was my fault) I am happy to relate the details to clear it up for you. I really appreciate your interest in my post and your informed comments.
Best regards,
Denny
300WSM :gwh:

Hi Denny, glad to hear that W&B worked out well for you. I have never tried pyramiding with the higher grits but now you have piqued my curiosity and I'll have to take a shot at it. Cool when people try new things and make discoveries. :tu

Jimmy,
I love that big wide body W&B and what ever you did to hone it certainly worked. I do have to report that I tried the 8000/16000 pyramid on an 8/8 Cowvan razor I scored off the Bay and it worked very well. This was after I set the bevel with a Shappy 1000 and pyramided 4000/8000 per Lynn's directions in the Pyramid Wiki.

I shaved this AM with it and my big mug is as smooth as a baby's posterior. It was overall smooth with a little irritation at the base of my neck which for me is standard operating procedure. More to come.

Thanks for taking the time to comment, my friend, and I hope my new found procedure works for you. So far I have had excellent results.
Best regards,
Denny
300WSM :gwh:

Gents,
I wanted to follow up on my Cowvan experiment as I promised. I am glad to report that after shaving every morning with it (after using the 8000/16000 Shapton pyramid on the final hone procedure) I am thinking that this razor is the smoothest shaving straight in my rotation. I know that this may be in part because of the steel itself but, regardless, the results have me optimistic. I have several razors needing some touch up as the CRO2 stropping is proving insufficient. I will use the procedure on them to see if they respond as well as the other razors on which I have tried this procedure. More to follow.
Denny
300WSM :gwh:

Gentlemen,
I wanted to post one last comment about this procedure. I have been able to try the pyramid honing using the Shapton 8000/16000 combination on three other razors. They were all from my rotation and needed a touchup and not a full honing. Well, it worked like a dream. The razors included a 7/8 Joseph Rogers, a 8/8 R. Geldmacher and a 6/8 Imperial Eagle. After the honing and stropping they all passed an HHT and most important of all shaved as well as I can remember them shaving since I started using them and I have been using them once a week for quite a while now. I am satisfied that this procedure has produced some fine results (for me anyway). I hope someone out there can experience some satisfaction with the technique as well.
Best Regards,
Denny
300WSM :gwh:

300WSM,

Many thanks for your post on the Shaptons; I do not have any Shaptons, but have used the Naniwa SuperStones both incrementally and in pyramid, with good success.

Have fun !

Best regards

Russ

The way I see it is if you try something and it works, keep doing it..! :tu

Thanks for this thread. Very interesting stuff. I have a few razors that could use touch-ups, so I will let you know how it goes...

Pyramiding has been a logical, simple, and effective method for a very long time. Shaptons, Nortons, Barber hones. Whatever.

The challenge isn't making it work. The challenge is convincing people that it does.

Props to you though for your success!!

I think Denny is on to something. I had a new boker king cutter that I could get close to comfortable, but not quite there. I would shave, then try 5 more stokes on the 16km then try again. I did this maybe 5 or 6 times, but it still wasn't there. After reading this thread I decided to give this method a try and my shave this morning was out of this world! By far the sharpest I have gotten a razor myself. I have only been honing for a few months, so IMO this method is perfect for newbies like me who don't quite have the refined tactile sense for sharpness tests yet.

dartmn9,
MY point exactly. I am not the most proficient in honing and I have had mixed results, mostly good using the 1000 to set up a bevel, 4000/8000 pyramid per the Wiki and finishing on the 16000. Even after stropping the results were not always satisfactory. So far, I have had nothing but superior results with the 8000/16000 finish pyramid honing. I just picked up a nice Bancroft off the Bay. I will let you how this one turns out. I have tried the finish pyramid (for a lack of a better term) on all of my users. Best shaves ever.
Best regards,
Denny
300WSM :gwh:

Muy interesting read. Thanks for posting your experiences on this.
I do not have any shaptons, but hopefully this will work in a similar fashion on my 8 and 12K Naniwas.

It will, it's the way that I touch up a razor and finish one on the Nani's...

Reviving an old thread. I tried this yesterday and had my best home-honed shave yet! Very sharp indeed, I may have to improve my shaving technique to keep up with it. Until such time, I've got a bunch of razors to finish!

Someone with hardly any experience at all will pipe in soon letting you know that it doesn't make sense.

It is tried and true no matter, one of those systems that will be around for generations.

I have to try this next time I hone up a razor .. I usually set bevel on 1 k pyramid 4/8 then hit the 12,000 for about 15 strokes to finish.. Now I'm gonna try the 8/12 nainwa see how it goes..

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Originally Posted by AFDavis11

Someone with hardly any experience at all will pipe in soon letting you know that it doesn't make sense.

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Well, I have hardly any experience at all and it doesn't make sense! Except perhaps that it allows for more strokes on the finisher before overhoning occurs, but that's just speculation.

I think a very adept honer does not need pyramids, but newbies like me benefit from them.

Short Mag,

I have been experimenting with pyramids using a Naniwa 8K and 12K. All I can say is that it works for me and I get very smooth, comfortable shaves.
Keep up the good work.

John

I am usually a progressive honer but tried this on one of my favourite razors I was having trouble on (a dovo Bismarck 6/8) and had awesome results, thanks for the kiss of life on this thread