Thread: rattler rehone, (ZG content)

Apparently in a rush to get the big fat hollow blade to my face, I didn't achieve a complete bevel set despite the razor passing pre-shave testing no probs.

SO in the test shave it started out great, but the edge "faded" and lost its sharpness mid-shave. This is failure (and another reason WHY HHT (or any other) can be useless to determine shave-worthiness of an razor's final edge), and so I wiped it down and grabbed another blade to finish up.

This time i re-worked it on the 4k/8k, then to 12k Naniwa* for a handful of laps, then to the ZG slurried for 50-ish working down to water. stropped.

Test shave #2, brilliantly sharp first pass. Then a little Cerium Oxide powered stropping brought up the smoothness for the second pass and clean ups. I'm really happy with the edge now.

I only sharp-tested the Wester Bro, and it's "there". And went through that same sequence of rocks. Full shave test for it next.






*it does appear that these are back in stock at SRD (but not the 1k Chosera)

Originally Posted by WadePatton

...I didn't achieve a complete bevel set despite the razor passing pre-shave testing no probs.[...]SO in the test shave it started out great, but the edge "faded" and lost its sharpness mid-shave.

That sounds a bit weird. In my experience, when a portion of the edge hasn't taken a full bevel, that specific part of the edge won't gain sharpness at any point as the fin (or edge of the edge) will not make contact with the abrasive surface.

This is of course unless you used paste after honing, then it is possible that the part without the proper bevel just gained enough keenness to cut.

If you didn't use paste then to me it sounds like you created a burr that 'dropped off' (or whatever the terminology for burrs is) while shaving.

I won't rule that out, but yeah I have pastes and use them, but don't always keep good notes, especially when excited about a blade. The Rattler had me rattled. The pin hole slop was great, so I filled the hole and re-drilled it. That came out great. The horn looked awful but soaked up nice (and doesn't stink like the plastic on some). The edge has a very forgiving curve at toe and heel--a bit like a smile to hone working the edge up onto the bends. Easy to see why this would be a true Barber's blade.

Thing is, it didn't pass a full shave, and now it's the hottest edge in the house (and with a ZG finish), and it's not seen any CrOx, only Cerium. Shaving is the only test.

I don't doubt it shaves, I'll take your word for it

I was just wondering about you mentioning the bevel not being set completely, yet the edge cutting stubble - I have gone through entire honings with one part missing a proper bevel, they wouldn't cut arm hair at skin level with trying real hard. Of course there are probably levels of bevel thickness that influence the cutting ability (as sharpening is basically thinning out two planes until they meet as close as possible).

So paste would explain that fine enough, I guess.

I use the HHT (or any other 'final' sharpness test) before finishing and stropping, in your case this would likely have resulted in unsatisfactory reading, I'd guess.