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Honing - thanks to the honemeisters here
I want to give a huge thank you to the honemeisters and the many members who are posting frequently about learning the honing craft.
Your skills videos and continued input on all thing related to honing have been a great help in recent honing attempts to hone some razors I had thought to be in the too hard basket.
The first is a Reliance 6/8" full hollow that had a chip in the blade caused when i dropped it while rinsing the blade after shaving :(
Initial black marker test and some trial and error strokes showed I would need to hone about 45 degree heel forward with a rolling X stroke, quite difficult to do as I had not tried it before. Fortunately thanks to the many instructional videos here at SRP and a lot of patience I managed to work it out without too much trouble.
This one was honed initially on a Naniwa 1000 but found this was way too slow going, so went down to the 400 Naniwa hone. After several sets of 40 circles X strokes with 3 layers of tape, , and changing the 3rd layer of tape a couple of times, I got close to a bevel set. then went to just 1 layer of tape and continued until I felt the bevel appeared to be getting very close to being set. Then went to the 1K Naniwa hone and continued working on getting the bevel set. It took about another 20 minutes and a tape change to get the bevel to where it felt right. The rolling X stroke was modified to having the heel slightly forward in the later stages. Then it was on the the Norton 4K/8K hone (on loan from an Aussie member) and continue honing to get the edge up to a shaving level. When tested on arm hair the edge was cutting them cleanly about 1/8" above skin level. To finish I went to my Thuringian hone for about 30 laps. Then stropped on pressed felt about 50 laps, and leather strop about 80 laps. The edge feels quite good with no resistance at all when cutting arm hair. I am looking forward to the shave test in the morning.
The second is a KAMA razor that started as a little over 13/16" wide and thanks to a small amount of swiss cheese holes through the edge it is now about a 6/8" razor. The honing for this razor was actually a little less trouble than the Reliance razor. The black marker showed I had a nice straight edge and spine, in fact the spine wear was almost un-noticeable. I started out on the 400 Naniwa hone and followed a very similar pattern to the previous razor, using 3 layers of electrical tape to start. After nearly an hour of circles and up and down strokes the swiss cheese had disappeared. The Naniwa hone was lapped part way through this process to make sure i had a flat surface to work on, and I was using a fair amount of pressure to remove the metal. When the bevel was close to being set I dropped down to 2 layers of tape for a couple of sets of circles, then to 1 layer and lighter pressure strokes. After this changed to the 1K Naniwa hone with 1 layer of tape and finished off the bevel setting. I decided to leave the razor at that point as I was losing concentration by this time. This razor will be finished off hopefully tomorrow or when I get some more time to work with it
Ok I know you love pics so here they are - not too clear so I will try for better pics soon.
The first is the Reliance razor - pic taken after honing and a basic clean up, sorry no before pics available
I will test shave this one on Sunday - It's Fathers Day here in Australia :)
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The second is the KAMA razor - this pic is also poor quality and was taken after bevel setting.
Some more clean up work to be done with this one, it looks quite nice in the flesh
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Oops sorry about the rambling long post, just a bit excited about getting a good result :)
