Thread: been honing, now questions, part 2

ok, so I completely started over. grabbed the aic, and gave it a whirl. i am pretty certain that this blade is stainless, so i will get back to it eventually.

watched lynns video of the circle method on the 4/8 norton. grabbed a boker red injun and a bj eyre and took a deep breath.

results were excellent. made it through 1 1/2, wtg/atg, shave on the boker before it needed a strop and a full 2 shaves, wtg/atg, on the eyre before it needed a strop.

now. i am not using a finish stone or a pasted strop after the hone. should i do or use one or the other, or both? i guess im wondering witch way polishes more, or is it the combination?

thanks for all the information after the last thread, it was a big help and now i am sure to be on my way to acquiring more hones.

I am about to make a very hypocritical statement.

I cannot emphasize this enough.

Seriously, very hypocritical.

Here goes.

You
don't
need
anything
else!

You would be better off not getting anything else YET. The more time you spend improving your ability to get great shaves off of your 4k/8k honing, the better honer you will be. More and "better hones" will not improve your honing. Practice, patience, and attention to the details of honing will accomplish much more for you.

It's all good. I am not planning on acquiring more hones in the near future. My plan is to continue honing to better my technique, am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to an edge. I like sharp!

Mostly was curious about a more refined polish on the edge. It has been discussed quite a lot here, and was wanting to know what polishes more for the next step.
Finisher or paste. Beyond that, I did get an old duck sharp today, and give it a test run tomorrow.

When I was thinking about the edge today all I could think of caddy shack...
Be the edge. keep your eye on the edge. nanananananana. Keep your eye on the edge.
Lame humor, but helpful. Helped me relax.

Thanks for the help.

Excellent plan!

Now I'm willing to answer your question. Either option will work.

The nice thing about the pastes is that they are cheaper and you can put paste on anything. Well, OK, toast might be a bad idea, so let's say almost anything. Two really cheap but effective options are newspaper and the inside of a cereal box. Either can be made into an effective strop.

There are lots of options for hones and you might find a few threads discussing them somewhere around here.

Methinks a fully developed edge should make it through a full shave, maybe two before re-stropping would be necessary. Hmph, but that now that i think of it, I often do two passes with the razor-of-the-day and then clean up with a different blade.

No. I know that my favorite blades will go 3+ passes on one stropping. fer sher.

Hey and FTR i got my first good shaves off the 8k Norto and canvas and leather, nothing else. It was many many shaves before I got some .5 micron Chromium Oxide to try.

SO yeah, stick to it, be the edge, FEEL the edge*.

*on the stone. FEEL and HEAR what is going on 'twixt the metal and the stone. nananananananah.

Are you removing all the 4K stria with the 8k?

After all the 4K stria is gone, do 10 clear water, weight of the blade laps.

What are you stropping on? 30-50 laps on Linen or Nylon/Poly then leather will improve the edge.
As said learn to get the best edge you can from the stones, actually learn to get the best edge from… each stone. Then your linen, then you leather.

You can use Pastes or Sprays buy none of them are magic. Each step in the progression builds the edge and the results are dependent on the quality of the previous step. So learn to perfect each step.

The stone remains the same, you... your technique will improve.

When polishing use light even laps. Experiment by doing 10 laps on you 8K with the blade 90 degrees to the stone, then do 10 more heal forward at about 30 degrees. Look at the stria, are you removing the 90 degree stria? Practice these straight and angled laps and use the stria to monitor you progress.

A week from now your shaves will be much better, a month from now even better. You are a long way from maximizing the potential of the stone.

The keys for my "next level" of honing were:

proper use of pressure, slurries, and magnification to learn if bevel is really really really there.

razors (and knives too) can appear to be quite sharp (via "tests") with much less than a perfect bevel.

Perfect the bevel, and endeavor to be diligently perfect with pressures and slurries.

usually 40-50 linen then leather. i am also really making sure that my technique is proper here as well. i may have been using too much pressure, in order to compensate for in improperly tight strop. getting a bit too relaxed. honing is surely making me really pay attention to all the basic principals!

really trying to feel the blade, they are all different, but the same. tonight sharpened a sword and crown 1720, pretty hollow. at the start i just could not get it to cooperate, so checked in all this wonderful information here on srp, and bam, realized i was using to much pressure. really lightened up on the pressure, basically none, and it shaprened.

this was the first time i used such a hollow grind, and not sure it is for me, very coarse hair? i really like the heavier blades. although the duck satin wedge and the genco henry x were very pleasant.

man i love this honing stuff. i have picked up all kinds of razors over the last couple years and now am able to use them!!! on top of that i have saved money already.

thanks again, this place is great!

Originally Posted by Funstuff

i have picked up all kinds of razors over the last couple years and now am able to use them!!! on top of that i have saved money already.

For most of us, those two sentences do NOT belong together.

Now that you point it out, it does sound a bit odd.