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

so i just got my dovo back from lynn, freshly honed.

the first shave was amazing, and gave me my first truly successful BBS shave. yaay!

i then stropped it (60 on linen, 30 on leather) and put it away.

on the next shave, the razor wasn't as sharp.

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.

SO, which of the following is most likely happening?

1. i overhoned the razor.

2. my new dovo doesn't hold an edge for very long.

3. i need to use a coarser diamond hone, and start over.

4. i should hang up my spurs.

if you have any idea, please let me know how i can check it out, and what steps to take to correct it (especially #1).

mucho gracias,
drawkward

Originally Posted by drawkward

i then stropped it (60 on linen, 30 on leather) and put it away.

on the next shave, the razor wasn't as sharp.

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

I don't know what actually happened but it is possible that you rolled the edge with improper stropping. The DMT sharpening card was the coup de gras. Send it back to Lynn for honing and leave that DMT for your pocket knife. Check out the stropping tutorials/videos in the SRP Wiki. This 1961 barber manual excerpt in the Wiki Help Files here was very beneficial for me.

Oh man, you screwed up. Lynn's edge didn't crap out after one shave. If you're new to this, most likely your stropping screwed it up. If you're new to honing, there is virtually no chance that you did anything but mess up your edge with the diamond card.

1. You didn't overhone it. You simply removed the edge Lynn put on it.

2. If there was something wrong with the steel in the Dovo, and this can occasionally happen, Lynn would have noticed it.

3. You don't need a coarser hone, you need a finer hone. You also need to learn how to hone. You also need to learn how to strop.

4. You need patience. Most critically, you should not have been so quick to re-hone a freshly honed razor. Most likely proper stropping would have solved it.

Perhaps you should send it back to Lynn? Also, you might want to review a few stropping videos. Good luck.

sadly, i don't think it was my stropping that did me in.

after re-reading the wiki and multiple posts on honing, i think i made the beginner's mistake of getting a finishing stone rather than a barber's hone. doh!!!

anyway, thanks for the replies. lynn's getting my razor back...

Originally Posted by drawkward

sadly, i don't think it was my stropping that did me in.

after re-reading the wiki and multiple posts on honing, i think i made the beginner's mistake of getting a finishing stone rather than a barber's hone. doh!!!

anyway, thanks for the replies. lynn's getting my razor back...

If the razor was not shaving properly after you stropped it, it was probably your stropping that did it.

No... you bought a very coarse stone. VERY coarse... the DMT extra-fine is only 1,200 mesh-- this is only slightly less coarse than a bevel-setting stone-- read more... a 'finishing' stone and a 'barber's' hone are, for all practical intents and purposes the same thing.

ah, i see now.

i've read through the wikis and guides, and i guess i'm just getting confused by all the different options and terms. 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.

If you just want to keep a razor touched up a barber hone is a good tool. If you want to learn to hone your own a norton , naniwa or shapton set is probably your best bet. Waterstones and listed in the SRP Wiki under honing "What Hone Do I Need".

When you talk to someone about honing, it's almost always in the range of what works for knives. In a hardware store, they might know a lot about sharpening knives and chisels but the stones they use for final work are pretty much the hones we use for initial rough work. It's not their fault. Unfortunately it's a common mistake made by new members here to take their razors to a knife sharpener who ends up trashing their blade. You got off easy!

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!

Fortunately, I know a lot less than anyone else commenting here, so allow me to tell you the one simple thing that every beginner should know -- DON'T HONE ANYTHING!! Don't even think about it.

Just send you blades to a master sharpener like Lynn, and then use them for months. That's really how long a honing should last you -- many, many shaves and certainly more than 30.

When you get more experienced and actually know how to maintain your blades by stropping, then you can start to think about the other parts of the honing process, like a finishing stone, a mid-range stone, a bevel setting stone and so forth.

But seriously, don't hone anything right now. Your blade does not need it, really.