Frustration honing journey
So as the title implies a little journey for you, hoping someone might be able to spark something that I'm missing or just haven't thought of.
I'm nothing close to a honemeister, I have honed a few up so far from scratch (make my own). The first two I did were full hollows and the first razors I've ever honed. Looking back, they both went extremely well considering. The last two I've done one was around half hollow that took a little extra but I ended up getting it. But the most recent was roughly a 1/4 hollow, also the first stainless blade I've done.
I've spent hours upon hours, for the past couple weeks messing with this thing. I couldn't figure out if it was something wrong I was doing, or not doing. If it was because it was a 1/4 hollow and I just wasn't used to it. If it was because it was a stainless steel and I was used to the carbon going much quicker. I tried x-pattern, 45 x-pattern, rolling x's, you name it. Pyramids, circles, squares and even a rhombus or two.
I would get it to the point where it was ALMOST there but just no cigar, it would shave arm hair but not pop it above the skin. Everyonce in awhile it would catch a few and even sometimes HHT barely. But it would always give a very poor shave, mostly it was just too unbearable, and when it would shave it would leave stubble. I would always pick up the last razor I made and have to do the shave with it.
I began slapping tape on and really looking at my bevels (which I've learned alot from this), today I went up to 3 layers of tape and got it as close to shave ready as I have so far, so I gave it another go. This time while I was stropping I thought Im really going to give it a hard strop woven fabric then leather. I applied more pressure than I believe than is needed or I have needed up to this point, and low and behold, it actually shaved! It wasn't the most comfortable or BBS, but I could go to work with my face like this with no problem.
But still leaves me wondering what did I do (or not) that was giving me this problem? I have so many thoughts it's hard to parse them out. So if any of you guys are bored tell me your thoughts, anything is appreciated.
Thanks