Thread: What's you pattern for eBay specials? (Crap to SHARP³)

Wow...good info guys thanks for sharing that. It'll come in handy having had this discussed here. I'm still having some trouble with this blade I'm working on though, even after working the toe half on the 1K to even out the bevel into a single full length bevel I'm still not getting the whole thing sharp yet. The heel half still cuts hair nicely (after a couple of pyramids) but the toe half just runs right over the hair without doing anything at all. I can't see any signs of a bad bevel, but I lack a microscope and all I have for magnification purposes is a magnifying glass. Are there any suggestions for what I can do to try working the kinks out further? Like should I go through a couple of the aggressive pyramids maybe three sets to see if things even out?

I'd say do a couple dozen laps on the 4k only, working hard for evenness all along the edge and equal on both sides, Then do a full pyramid starting at 3/5, 5/5 etc. up to 10/5, 15/5, 10/5 and back down again. Gradually ease off the pressure toward the end to ultra light. Report any differences.

X

Josh, when doing the rock-and-roll technique your hand winds up making a vertical X along the side of the hone. Whether the heel leads or the razor is straight across the hone doesn't matter, but whatever you choose this remains constant all the way down the hone.

Well X, I took your advice...kinda...in that I did about 25 passes along the entire blade edge on the 1K then went through a major pyramid (my term for doing an aggressive pyramid that runs directly into a conservative). I did this in about an hour last night while watching Modern Marvels last night before I went to bed, and by the time I stopped I had this bad boy cutting hairs pretty much the whole way down the blade.

Unfortunately I'm not able to get my blades to HHT, so all of MY feedback is whether or not it'll take hair off my arm (or most recently my shin) and how well/easily it does it. Anyhow, I was relatively pleased with its performance last night so I decided to brave the dangers and give it a test shave today so here's my evaluation of progress so far.

While definitely not my most COMFORTABLE shave, this beast did a really good job. Everything came off nice and smooth, though running the blade down my face left it feeling kinda raw or scratchy. I think maybe a few more pyramids might help smooth that aspect up but for the moment I managed a two pass (with/against) shave with some touch up all with this razor with only a couple of weepers on my upper lip (so far I get those with any of my razors).

I think in an effort to smooth things up I'm going to do a couple dozen passes on the 4K tonight after work to try and clean up and scratches that might still exist from the 1K work and then do another major pyramid to see if it doesn't get just a little bit sharper.

Originally Posted by Gawker

I think in an effort to smooth things up I'm going to do a couple dozen passes on the 4K tonight after work to try and clean up and scratches that might still exist from the 1K work and then do another major pyramid to see if it doesn't get just a little bit sharper.

If you don't have one yet you might want to pick up one of the little $10 60x-100x microscopes from Radio Shack. They are a very cheap tool that are very useful when diagnosing honing problems. At maximum magnification you can easily see the striations from the coarser grits as well as any microchips in the edge and and partially formed bevels as well.

I finally* found this superb thread discussing the famous "rolling" honing technique, so I'm topping it so others can benefit from my discovery . . .

* It's hard to find with the search function because the thread title ain't descriptive and the word rolling is used in a lot of threads!