Thread: My honing experience so far

I am sure this all sounds like the same ol' but I thought I would share my honing experience. I am new to honing razors but have some experience in knives. I got a Norton 4k/8K that I lapped in with a Norton dressing stone, a Japanese waterstone, also lapped and a balsa board with Tormek honing paste.
My razor is new to me and in great shape. I started with just stropping it and it would shave ok in the light weeds but was kinda rough in the thicker. I tried Lynn's refresher method and the razor seemed worse, then tried the full hone method with no improvement. So I decided to lightly kill the edge then I tried his full hone method again and it didn't improve much. After a few more tries followed with, hitting it on the 12k stone and always finishing with the strop, I saw some improvement and thought It would be OK to try a shave with it. It did OK, I was able to do my full face down stroke only without any snags and it definitely did much better on my thick chin area. I felt like it could do better so I gave it one more shot but this time I added in about 100 strokes on the treated balsa followed with canvas and leather stropping. It finally cleanly passed the HHT and easily cuts my arm hair. I haven't tried to shave with it but I confident it should do just fine.
So, now I am wondering was it the run on the treated balsa that finally got it their or was it just that it took that many hones to get the edge proper. Every video I have seen on honing, no one seems to need to go much beyond a what Lynn does in his normal hone video. What is a bit bewildering to me is the cutting edge looks and feels the same when performing the thumb pad test as before I started all this honing.
For the time being, I am assuming that shaving and stropping will only make the edge better. Hopefully future hones will only be of the light touch up type.

All I really know is that the next time the razor needs honed be careful to correct the apparent frown. You should also learn about the various sharpness tests, I find the magnified LRT to be the most useful.

Jonathan

I think the image is a little distorted. Its flat. At some point in its life, someone got a little carried away with grinding the heel. Noticeable on the left side of the photo.
Thanks for the link.

I'm new to honing; so take what follows with a grain of salt. I've found that when I was first starting to hone the problem was that I was moving up on grits too quickly. I'd start on a polishing grit before I got a bevel set. I've found that one should do more low grit honing than high grit. Really make sure that you have an even bevel and that the edge is undercutting water evenly across the length of the blade and that you don't feel any extra dragging on any part of the edge on the stone. Only when everything seems even should you move up a grit.

Nice looking blade you have there

Adding 100 laps on the balsa is bound to have some effect, but if you missed out on the lower grits, it cannot correct that. Honing takes quite a bit of practise and razor edges are very sensitive to the amount of pressure, evenness of strokes and the number of strokes you use.

My best guess is that you did a better job the last time on the hones. You may want to try the pyramid method, it helped me a lot. Also, note that 100 laps on crox is not recommended as it can lead to overhoning, where the edge gets too thin and crumbles during a shave. That's why all the videos show just 10 laps or so, if you've got the lower grits right, that's all you need.

Originally Posted by SuperSpeedRacer

I'm new to honing; so take what follows with a grain of salt. I've found that when I was first starting to hone the problem was that I was moving up on grits too quickly. I'd start on a polishing grit before I got a bevel set. I've found that one should do more low grit honing than high grit. Really make sure that you have an even bevel and that the edge is undercutting water evenly across the length of the blade and that you don't feel any extra dragging on any part of the edge on the stone. Only when everything seems even should you move up a grit.

+1 on this.

Make sure the bevel is set on the 1K or whatever you're using to set the bevel. I like to look at the edge with a 40x loupe and see how well it shaves arm hair all along the length of the blade.

Once you have a good bevel all you need to do is polish the edge with the higher grits which typically goes pretty fast.

-john

My balsa strop is only about 12" long and I use about 8" of it. I try to avoid overdoing it. If I get a less then a decent shave out of it, I'm going to take a break and use my CJB Kamasori for awhile. Figure it would best to walk away then get frustrated.

Im gonna ninja the thread. I just got my naniwa waterstones and started playing with honeing. I got 1k,5k,8k and 10k. The blade looked clean and had a nice edge (only very dull). I starte out on the 1k with a few 10 x-strokes sets, moved on to 5k did the same and continued to 8k and did the same. At this point I was even struggling cutting arm hair. I went back to 5k and did a lot of x-strokes. A lot. Now it shaves arm hair ok.

I have been doing alot of strokes so I don't feel like I have gotten anything out of my work. Do you guys think I shoul spend more time setting the bevel on the 1k? Or should I just keep honeing on the 5k?

Originally Posted by iMAGINE

Im gonna ninja the thread. I just got my naniwa waterstones and started playing with honeing. I got 1k,5k,8k and 10k. The blade looked clean and had a nice edge (only very dull). I starte out on the 1k with a few 10 x-strokes sets, moved on to 5k did the same and continued to 8k and did the same. At this point I was even struggling cutting arm hair. I went back to 5k and did a lot of x-strokes. A lot. Now it shaves arm hair ok.

I have been doing alot of strokes so I don't feel like I have gotten anything out of my work. Do you guys think I shoul spend more time setting the bevel on the 1k? Or should I just keep honeing on the 5k?

You have to be sure the bevel is set on the 1k before proceeding to higher grits - if the bevel isn't perfect the final result will be disappointing.

The razor should effortlessly shave arm hair - they should just pop right off when the edge hits them at skin level. A 40x LED loupe from Amazon is also very helpful. I use these two tests in combo to ensure a good bevel and then polish the edge.

John

Is that the only way to ensure you have a good bevel, by looking? I guess I need to do some work at 1k first then.