How much honing?

Ok, honestly. I have an ebay special. I've posted about it when I bought it (http://straightrazorpalace.com/showthread.php?t=10407) -- it's Vanadium by CF Ern. I looked up Vanadium and vanadium is a steel additive to supply strength.

Anyhoo -- I polished this thing up fairly nicely with a bunch of wet/dry automotive polishing sandpaper (800 and 1K grit) and some Maas, and found myself a Norton 4k/8k, and a strop.

Initially the razor was barely sharp enough to cut butter.

I have put in at least 4 pyramid series starting at 20/20. and then at 4 more visits to the 8k side with 10 passes each time. I perform an HHT after each honing, then strop and repeat the HHT, and never does the blade pass, nor does it really cut off any arm hairs or anything. I can get it to cut a beard hair if it happens to catch the thing, and then it will pull the hair apart.

So clearly, something is wrong. Should I a) hone more, b) not use exclusively x-patterned pyramids as demonstrated on Lynn's DVD or 3) invest in a belt sander.

Thanks for any input!

How about 20 passes with reduced pressure on 8K? I'd need more info to help out.

OK, we're going into diagnostic mode here. My guess is that your sanding and polishing have basically removed the bevel from the razor, and that we'll need to re-establish it before the razor is going to get sharp. (Picture doing pyramids on a butter knife. It would take a long time to get it sharp, right?)

Take a good look at the edge of your razor. Is there an even bevel on both sides of the edge, or does the blade look like it just continues on and then abruptly stops at the edge, maybe with a slight rounded taper?

Wet your thumbnail, then drag the razor slowly across it. Do you feel it biting in at all, or does it just sort of glide over the nail without making a mark?

Describe what you find from these two experiments, and we'll get you on track.

Josh

At this point there is a visible bevel that is straight and even all across, both sides. Before this honing experience there was no bevel at all.

On a thumbnail I do get a sensation of biting in -- though I don't know how severe it should feel -- I get more or less a slight sensation of increasing drag in the motion without feeling any sort of "uh-oh I'd better stop before I hurt myself."

Sounds like you're overhoning.
Try; 3/3, 5/5, 10/5, 5/5, 3/5, 1/3,1/3,1/3 with less pressure on the 4K than the 8k side.
Start with 'some' pressure overall and by the time you're at the 1/3's you should be down to very light pressure on the 4k and ultra light on the 8k.
Even all along the edge at all times.
Don't use the thumbnail test on an edge with even so much as a bevel on it. You'll ruin the edge.

X

It sounds like we're in pretty good shape. The razor should bite in pretty good without feeling gritty.

I think you need to do a few more aggressive pyramids at this stage. Use light, even strokes. Do one pyramid and then try the hanging hair test. As you get closer you want to test frequently so you can see your progress.

After one to three more pyramids I think it's time for a shave test.

Josh

Heh heh--opposite advice from X. :)

Following his advice would be good if you're close to shave ready. Trouble is, we don't really know how close you are. If you're still a ways off, though, it'll take forever to get there that way.

Since you took the bevel off originally and nothing's happening on the HHT, I'm inclined to think you're not that close yet.

Does it shave arm hair without any pressure? That's one test that tells me when I'm getting close. I very lightly shave my arm. If it shaves the hairs there then it's getting ready to do a light pyramid like X described. I shoot for shaving arm hair off the 4K.

Josh

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JoshEarl

Does it shave arm hair without any pressure? That's one test that tells me when I'm getting close. I very lightly shave my arm. If it shaves the hairs there then it's getting ready to do a light pyramid like X described. I shoot for shaving arm hair off the 4K.

Josh

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I only use leg hair these days. At a certain moment my left arm was covered with bald patches. Now I have bald patches on my legs, but at least people don't see that.

Come summer I'll have to think of something else though :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Merovian

On a thumbnail I do get a sensation of biting in -- though I don't know how severe it should feel -- I get more or less a slight sensation of increasing drag in the motion without feeling any sort of "uh-oh I'd better stop before I hurt myself."

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I do the TNT without pressure. i.e. only the weight of the razor, or even less if it is a wedge. I am satisfied if the razor bites in a way that makes me think that I'd cut through the nail if I'd apply more pressure.

Thanks for all the info!

At this point, I'm leaning more toward JoshEarl's diagnosis -- not honed enough, rather than overhoned.

I cannot get it to cut arm hairs without using some pressure, so clearly there is a long way off. I tried stropping it a while and give myself one pass with the thing this morning before finishing up with the usual materials (Merkur Classic DE) and it felt like shaving with barbed wire. Pretty hardcore, truly -- but also pretty unpleasant.

Should I at any point be doing the little circle pattern that is shown on Lynn's DVD? Or is that way too much?

Also, Josh -- by "aggressive pyramids" do you mean starting at 20 as I have been? (20/20, 15/15, 10/10, 5/5, 3/3, 1/3, 1/5) or something more or less aggressive than that?

Thanks again!

PS Bruno- - I'll have to remember that leg hair trick -- sounds like a good idea.

I try to keep things simple. Also, I subscribe to the "lazy man's approach" to straight razor shaving.
Assuming there's no damage, abuse, or anything adverse about the razor (and, being lazy, I stay away from damaged razors), once the edge passes the thumb nail test, I'm done honing and that's it.
It could take a couple of passes or a hundred (hopefully not), but once it feels right on the thumb nail, it's done.
If it will cut a hair off of the hone, that's good too, but not essential. I'm more concerned with HHT off of the strop.


Scott

Merovian,

Starting at 20 would be fine, I think. You might even want to just stay with the 4K for a while, testing on your arm or leg hair after every 20 or 30 laps.

EBay razors take a lot of work to get up to speed. I usually spend one to three hours on one, although others are able to get the job done more quickly. Depending on how bad the edge is, I usually start with 1K sandpaper, then do 50-200 laps on a 1K Norton to get a flat, even bevel. You can see how much metal that might remove. It doesn't sound like you need to go that extreme right now, but don't be surprised if it takes a lot of strokes on the 4K to get the razor shaving.

Pyramids are good, I think, but until you get to a basic level of sharpness I think they slow you down a bit. The point is to remove metal, and while the 8K does that the 4K will get the job done more quickly.

You might want to tape the spine with electrical tape, if you haven't already done that. You'll probably put way more wear on this particular razor than is typical, since you're just starting out, and the tape will help minimize that.

I'd avoid circles for right now; they're good but will be of limited usefulness unless you know exactly what you're trying to accomplish with them.

One thing that I think is confusing is the term "establish the bevel." To new guys, that sounds like you're just putting a bevel on the blade. I think the honemeisters tend to use that to mean getting to the point where the bevels meet and form a sharp edge. You can have a bevel that doesn't run all the way to the edge.

So "establishing a bevel" really means getting the razor to a minimum level of sharpness. For me, that means the razor passes the hanging hair test all along the blade off the 4K.

Once the bevel/edge is set, the final polishing goes very quickly--maybe a few dozen strokes.

Stick with X-pattern strokes for now, doing them evenly with enough pressure to keep the razor flat on the hone. The light pressure stuff is for finishing the razor, not the earlier stages of honing. Test frequently and let us know how you're coming.

Good luck,
Josh

P.S. I spent hours and hours on my first razor, probably thousands of laps. It takes time and practice, and it's best not to worry about ruining the razor. (Unless it's a really nice one, in which case you should get an inexpensive one to practice on.)

For me it has become a combination of the thumb pad test and the HHT. I have very very fine hair, so for the razor to pass the HHT, it has to be very very sharp. Even when I first got it from Tony, it had a hard time passing the HHT. I don't for one moment think that Tony's sharpening skills are in question. Nope, I really think that it is my fine hair. I have it passing the HHT consistently now though. I am not claiming to have mastered honing over the weekend or anything. I really give credit to the pasted paddle I got from Tony. This seems to be a good way for a newby to start out, as you are already familiar with the stropping motion, but it requires a similar touch as a stone, light and even. I think that a pasted paddle or a bench strop is a good way to transition to stones.

I found the most success measuring with the thumb pad test throughout the whole process. The lighter the touch before I felt the razor starting to catch the skin, closer I was getting. Now the razor grabs the skin instantly.

I am sure there is a lot more to learn, but this seems like a good way to start out, at least it was for me. Good Luck.

Matt

So this evening I taped up the spine with electrical tape, and went 40/10, 10/10, 5/5, 3/3, 1/3, 1/5 and found the edge significantly better, though still not great. Then ten passes on the 8k and stropping let me actually catch a hair in HHT, then somehow split the thing legthwise down the middle. A second hair would catch about halfway through but never cut all the way.

I can now shave arm hairs with a little pressure, but it does require pressure to do any cutting..

I suppose now I should just be doing sets of 5-10 on the 8k side only? Any other thoughts?

Thanks for all your input so far!:tu

A few more pyramids then...

From there I usually do something I call BIG pyramids. Working predominately on the 8K for about 20-30 laps and adding in one 4K pass if it doesn't make improvements. Start watching for over honing though too. It might be a good idea to start test shaving very soon.

You should be focusing on cutting back on the pressure. Perfect strokes from here on out.

Take your time and be patient.

Merovian,

Sounds like we're getting closer. Try what Alan suggested a few times. If you're not able to make enough improvement that way, you might want to go back and do a few more pyramids starting at 10 or 5 on the 4K.

For me the biggest breakthrough was realizing how sharp the 4K could get the razor. In my mind the 4K establishes the sharpness and the 8K refines it. When I try to jump ahead to a higher grit before I've maxed out the previous one I get into trouble.

If you're finding that your hair works for the HHT, try to get the same response from the hair all along the blade.

Could you tell us more about the razor? What shape is the blade, and what shape is the edge? Curved edges are harder to hone, I've found, although I tend to prefer them for shaving.

Let us know how you're progressing. It sounds like you're doing really well.

Josh

Here's an image of the blade before I get to work on it tonight.

Nice pic, yea try what Alan said. :)

So I've gone and made another 50 or so passes on the 8k side of the hone, then I did another pyramid starting at 20, then another 20 or so passes on the 8k, after each of these three things I committed tests. In all cases I experienced no real improvement in the following tests:

HHT: maybe I'm doing this all wrong, but I kind of glide a hair across the edge of the razor and see if it cuts. I cannot get the hair to cut unless I drag the hair lengthwise along the edge and sometime the hair catches and cuts, and sometimes it does nothing but bend. IF I draw the hair AT the edge (or the edge at the hair as if, i dunno, shaving it) then nothing at all happens, not even any catching. Just bent hair.

Arm hairs: I have a bunch of ridiculous bald patches on my forearms now, but really they took some doing -- at no time has the blade simply passed through the hairs as if passing through air, leaving a trail of destruction and baldness. Usually if I make short choppy strokes and use pretty much no mercy with my blade hand, I can shave my arm. No skin irritation, but I feel each hair getting cut. Never is it so effortless that it seems accidental (which is what most descriptions of this test would make it seem -- whoops! shaved!)

So, either my blade is somehow unhonable (I made that word up, and also this seems very unlikely) or I am somehow entirely unable to manage a hone which would be possible but pretty depressing. I've been mirroring Lynn's moves on the DVD -- I've turned the sound up so I could HEAR him hone, and made sure my honing SOUNDs like his honing. Perhaps I'm using too little pressure? Folks here make it seem impossible to use too -little- pressure so long as blade meets stone at some point, but I notice I have much less steel debris on my hone during honing than is clearly visible as Lynn hones on the DVD. And yet, if I use what I might consider excessive pressure, I still don't get that much debris.

ARGH!:cen

Have you tried using the thumb pad test at all. I find that the HHT is not a very good test. This is mainly because it is highly dependent on the hair being used. Some guys talk about doing it right off the 4000, but my hair is so fine that the razor has to be damn sharp before it will pass this test. The arm hair test is better, but as your said it takes effort.

Ok back to the thumb pad test. This test is easier to do, but takes a light touch or you can cut your self bad. Read this thread if haven't already.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/showt...ighlight=thumb

After reading this post, I had a clear vision of the thumb pad test. When I first went to hone, I would use this test after each pyramid to gage my improvement. At first it seemed like the blade just got duller. But the sharpness started to build back up after.

As I started to notice it getting sharper and sharper, I started doing the test more frequently. I would stop between sections on my pyramid to check and finally between individual passes. I could instantly tell if I had developed a wire edge, as the razor was duller than before the previous couple of passes.

I suggest you start using this test frequently if you haven't already. You can gage the sharpness as you go. Trial and error seems to be a big part of learning this I'm afraid. You will get it though. Hundreds have come before you and hundreds will come after you, so don't get too discouraged over it.

Matt

Feels pretty dull, actually -- Looks like I gotta hone some more :p

Sorry for the ranting. It's just that I read posts like

"Holy crap! Don't hone TOO much! One or two passes is all it takes!"

or

"I got this ebay special and it was all beat up, so I laid it next to my hone for a few seconds (only an inch away! I know! I almost overdid it!) and man, it was so sharp that I accidentally split, like, 19 atoms just from looking at it too hard!"

(note these are slight exaggerations)

So when I'm here for a total of three hours at my hone (over the course of a week -- not one sitting) I feel like I'm doing something terribly wrong.

I'll get over it :rolleyes:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Merovian

..
"Holy crap! Don't hone TOO much! One or two passes is all it takes!"

or

"I got this ebay special and it was all beat up, so I laid it next to my hone for a few seconds (only an inch away! I know! I almost overdid it!) and man, it was so sharp that I accidentally split, like, 19 atoms just from looking at it too hard!"

(note these are slight exaggerations)

...

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LOL!! This is predominantly a male pastime, after all. You should expect a little swagger every now and then ...

But look on the bright side - if you wire-edge you at least know that somewhere along the line it *was* getting sharp...

I think you're in good hands with these guys - I haven't seen them lose one yet. Hang in there. Patience is a virtue, remember.

Good luck.

James.