Thread: Even honing

Are you sure its not your technique? Try the old magic marker trick on the blade and see what happens.

You can test the stone by wetting it and trying to stick it to the bottom side of a pane of class. If it doesn't hold then there's room for air to rush in and release the stone meaning it's definitely not flat.

I have the same stone and normally only do about 3 or 4 super light short strokes to finish my Norton made edge.

X

OK, what is the magic marker trick, I assume it is running a sharpie down the edge of the blade and seeing what comes up when I am honing, right? Will this sink into blade and be a problem to get rid of? What about what it does to the hone?

I went at it again last night, and I have more questions than answers, I am afraid - I have read over and over the various honing methods, etc, and I still don't seem to have an answer for soem of these problems, so here goes -

I tried another pyramid last night, slow and methodical, no pressure - I soaked the Nortons for half an hour ( I have two so I use one for 8k and one for 4k) and was able to move between them pretty easily - before I started I lapped the 12k Shapton with 600 grit wet/dry sandpaper on marble tile to make sure it was flat (that was the finest grit paper I could find - I did the pencil cross hatch and it all was good, the suction on the marble after lapping was impressive, so I am going to assume at this point it is flat) - But I am not even going to get there yet.

Nortons, question - taping; I know that there are some who advocate taping the spine to protect it when honing - but frankly, that seems counter intuitive to me - So, pardon me if I rehash old crap - but...If I use electrical tape on the spine, doesn't that defeat the point of having the spine dictate the angle of the bevel, if even only by a minute amount ( the thickness of the tape)? Lets say that I send a razor away to be sharpened, and that spine is taped - then I bring it back and decide that I want to hone it at some point due to dullness - if I do not put the tape back on the spine, am I not essentially creating a new bevel - and defeating the purpose of a touch up? When do you tape, and when do you remove the tape in the honing process?? Standard black electrical tape or blue painters tape (which is thinner, but probably more likely to shred)? That bevel angle may not be huge, but when you are talking a 5/8 blade you don't have a lot of room to work.

Norton - heel leading. Going through the pyramid past night, stones are on work bench 3ft. high, and I am standing, at the end of each stroke I am rolling the blade on the spine and depending on the direction, I pushing or pulling the blade on the stone. Ok, so I am trying to heel lead, but I noticed that after a short pyramid, that the blade seemed to bee getting just slightly narrower at the heel then the toe? What is up wth that, and have you all noticed this too? Is going straight down the 3" stone that bad a thing to do? It appeared to me with the way the water was being pushed that I was even on the stone - but apparently not. I have not done an x pattern, because my first attempts at it were very awkward, and I tended to rock the blade at the end of the stroke, and that didn't seem like a good idea. I also have been getting snagged on the tang by the heel occasionally when making the stroke, what is that about? Any suggestions, other than choking up?

Norton, THUMB PAD TEST. Ok, boys, I know, please don't tell me - this is discussed to death - but I still can't visualize, and I need to know what the hell this is, really. Assuming for a moment that I am holding the razor perpendicular to my body, but horizontal to the ground, out in front of me in a north-south orientation, spine down pointing toward floor and sharp end up, and I look down to see the sharp end up and the toe pointed toward the wall...with me so far? I take my wetted thumb and run my thumb *along* the blade, in other words, (pressed aginst the side of it) in a north-south motion from heel to toe, and see if the blade is grabbing - OR do I actually run my thumb down the sharp-death-blood-divot making edge (on top of the blade as if I was attempting to actually CUT myself) and see of the blade grabs? (this is kind of like grabbing a spark plug connected to a distributor to see if it fires when you crank the engine - if it is good, you shock the *&^% out of yourself, if it ain't nothing happens). In the other thread they talked about running the thumb from south east to north west (I think) across the edge but down at the same time - WTH? Using my visuals, could anyone really explain this to me?

OK, sorry this is SO long, but I had to ask. I am a studious disciple here and will pass this on man, I promise.

K

Kriton,

Good questions all. I'll tackle a few and leave the rest for others.

First off, you sound a bit frustrated. This is very overwhelming at times, but you WILL get it if you go slowly, remember to breathe and take a break when you want to grab a sledgehammer and teach your Nortons a thing or two.

Marker question: You got the test right--run the marker along the bevel and then do your honing strokes. Do two or three and then look at how the marker is wearing. Evenness along the entire edge--heel to toe--is what you want to see. You're more likely to find that you're not honing part of the blade. Figure out what it takes to get the whole edge on the stone, and stick with that stroke.

The marker will come right off with shaving lather or rubbing alcohol. It won't do any permanent damage to your hones, either.

Tape: I used to think tape was a dumb idea, but now I use it on every razor I hone. You're right, the tape does change the angle of the blade on the hone, ever so slightly. But it's not really a problem: When you go to touch up the razor, just slap another strip of tape on and do your touchups. (The main problem I could see here was if you used tape to hone and then wanted to use a barber hone for quick touchups during the shave. Because of the slightly different angle, you'd need to tape before using the barber hone, which is clumsy.)

In any case, the angle change is pretty minor, and a pyramid or two on the Norton should remove any double bevel that's created.

I use electrical tape for honing, and I remove it after I'm done on the hones and before I start with the pasted strop. If you're really worried about the angle thing, scotch tape works but does need to be replace more quickly.

Stroke: I know the X-pattern is clumsy at first, but it will serve you well if you master it. The trouble with straight across is that it doesn't work unless the hone and razor are perfectly straight. That might be the case on your current razor, but I'm sure one you'll get in the near future won't have a nice straight edge.

(There are ways to use a straight-across stroke with curved blades, but that's a little advanced for this thread.)

Furthermore, it's debatable whether straight across honing creates more even results than an X pattern. Sure, each part of the edge travels the same distance on the hone, but you're probably putting more pressure near the heel, which will cause it to wear faster.

Keep at it--you'll get it.

Josh

P.S. Having two Nortons is nice--you can lap them against each other to keep them flat. I use my 1K Norton for that, and I love it.

Tape is even less of an annoyance than that - it only changes the angle a very slight amount, even on the 5/8, if you stretch the tape when you first put it on. Or use masking tape or something even thinner if you want. Anyway, take the tape off before your last pyramid on the norton. If you don't pyramid, then take it off after you leave the norton and go to your shapton or coticule or whatever. It'll only take one or two strokes on the next hone to straighten the bevel out. To see this for yourself use the magic marker when you take the tape off, the marker is gone within a lap or two unless you're using something really really slow like a fine barber hone or a black arkansas stone. Even the translucent arkansas stone will even out the bevel in 5 or 6 laps.

I don't use tape at all for touch-ups, since the razor just isn't seeing more than a handful of laps on the finishing hone.

Josh, I actually have 4 of these stones, I got massively lucky by picking up Chucks Nortons that he wanted to unload, and these things are in perfect shape - so that leaves me a 220/1000, a 1000/8000, and 2 4k/8k's along with the 12k Shapton - it is amazing having all this honing power and no skill. Yes, I am just a bit frustrated, but not in a completely bad way - I find it interesting and I want to do it right, of course - really if there is any frustration it is the fact that I have several almost there razors, that really need some very little work, and I can't seem to get this...I do not want to have to send them off again - I finally figured out what I was doing wrong in my strop technique, now I have to get this down...I just really don't want to burn up a couple of decent razors in the offing. The tape sounds like a plan for the spines, do you also put it around the heel/tang, to keep from riding up on the indentation? I read the barber's manual on honing, and apparently you are suppoed to pull your thumb down the blade - that is just insane. I don;t know if my touch is that lite...I will probably slice the crap out of my thumb, but dammit, I am going to try it. So I can lap with stone against stone eh? Cool. Now give me some advice on the angle and bevel, and I will be at it again tonight. K

Kriton,

By angle I'm assuming you mean the relationship between the toe and heel as the blade moves across the stone, i.e. are they even with each other, or does the heel lead the toe.

The best angle varies from razor to razor. Sometimes keeping the heel and toe even is better; at other times it works better to angle the toe back, sometimes as much as 45 degrees. This is where the marker test can really help you out. It'll show you whether one angle works better than another.

As for your question on the thumb test, I wouldn't run my thumb along the edge (from heel to toe, in other words). Most guys do the thumb test by brushing the moistened pad of the thumb across the edge--at 90 degrees to it.

I just tape the spine, not the area where the heel joins the tang. If you find you're hitting the stabilizers here, play with different angles. Heel leading angles help avoid this problem.

The few who go along the edge are really just tapping the edge with a slight forward motion. Any more than that and you'll end up needing stitches.

Don't worry too much about destroying your razors. Pick one and stick with it. I probably put thousands of strokes on my first razor and it really didn't suffer too much.

As for the bevel, I find it's pretty hard to put a perfectly even bevel on a vintage razor. Spine wear and edge shape seem to have a big effect on the bevel you end up with. I wouldn't worry about it at this stage.

Let us know how things go.

Josh

For the majority of blades, all you really need is the old X pattern stroke at 90 degrees. For blades with smiles, or alot of previous honing and flattening of the shoulders as well as for wedges, the 45 degree angle will work best.

Have fun.

Oh yeah, having loads of fun...thanks Lynn!

K