Thread: did i just screw up a perfectly honed razor?

Originally Posted by drawkward

ah, i see now.
in the end, i ended up going to a local (highly rated) hardware store, and they seemed to know what they were talking about.

we'll just have to chalk this one up to experience, i guess.

Like the fellas already said, usually when people think of sharpening, they are thinking of knives, saw blades, chisels etc. Unless a person hones razors (and actually shaves with said razors) there is virtually no chance that they will give you the needed direction. Razor honing begins at grits well beyond what is needed to finish a knife or tool (depending on your level knife/tool fanaticism).

Good lesson, store it away and call upon it when you get your razor back from lynn. Tune up your stropping technique and have fun!

It must have been the stropping, IMO.

As Jimmy said, the death-blow was the subsequent honing - maybe you could have brought the edge back on the leather up to that point (if you didn't roll it, that is).

Just FYI, I usually do 30 on linen and 50 on leather. Linen is quite coarse - more abrasive than cotton, much more abrasive than leather.

Regards,
Neil

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

You should have stropped on leather as many strokes as you did on linen, I believe Lynn gives a free re-hone to new guys, for just such an emergency. It wouldn't hurt to ask.

For anyone else out there thinking about taking your razor to a knife guy......please don't!

I'll be more than happy to re-hone it for you. You can just pick up the postage.

Lynn

Originally Posted by drawkward

....snip...
so i bough a DMT extra-fine diamond sharpening card and tried my hand at honing my razor.

and the next shave was EVEN WORSE.
...snip...

A DMT extra fine hone is not the hone to use in a case
like this. From the DMT web site...

The Extra-Fine diamond (9 micron / 1200 mesh)
The Extra, Extra Fine diamond (3 micron / 8000 mesh)

This is a big difference between hones.

Opinion below....
and DMT 8K is too coarse and harsh for some razor folk.

As fast as diamond cuts extra care is needed or
you will have a difficult to work with burr. This is
especially so on the DMT stones. With a light
touch and some care a DMT EEF stropped correctly
can get some folk a good shave but that would be the
perhaps 60% of us I suspect (guessing).

About two month maybe even a year after you get it
back it will need to be touched up. I recommend sending
it out.

If you want to hone it a fine diamond paste on balsa say 0.5
micron or 1.0 micron should do the job. In Japan an 8000grit
hone is about 1.84 micron grit so 0.5 to 1 micron is a good choice.

Another option is a Naniwa Super Stone 12000 Grit which
cuts fast and can recover an edge when the strop cannot.
Combine the SS12K with a NANIWA SUPER STONE 3000 &
8000 GRIT COMBO STONE and you should be good to go
for a very long time.

N.B. (Note Well) US and Japanese standards for grit are different
on a number of points. Try to stay within a single vendor
when grits go finer than 4 or 6K....

Another classic work horse hone is the Norton 4/8K combo.
It will make a shave-able edge for the average shaver
using a pyramid technique. Pyramid + N4/8K hone
provided me with my first consistently sharp shaving
edges. Adding a SS12K was frosting on the cake.
The Naniwa SS3/8K combo should be nearly equivalent
to the Norton N4/8K but I have not tried it. Hmm
two hones with N in the name...

thanks everyone~

hopefully after a few years of this i'll be able to help out a newbie as much as you guys are helping me...