Thread: Am I missing something !

As far as I am concerned, pastes are abrasives, in other words they are very fine hones. In essence, honing a razor is just removing metal in smaller and smaller steps with finer and finer abrasives. Even what we term as 'polishing' or 'burnishing' is really just metal removal at a microfine degree. With very fine abrasives the most obvious sign of metal removal is removal or refinement of the scratch pattern on the bevel. Plastic deformation may play a part at the ultra thin apex where the bevels meet (the cutting edge) but the rest of the bevel, particularly the shoulder, is much thicker, yet the polishing effect is just as visible there.

As for what is responsible for the quality/feel of that cutting edge then it is glaringly obvious to me that it is the last abrasive used, be that a finishing hone or a paste/powder/spray. An analogy is painting woodwork. You used to have a matte finish primer coat, usually a different colour to the undercoat. Then came a matte finish undercoat the same colour as the gloss coat. At this point, the sanded primer was invisible. Only the undercoat registered on our senses, After sanding came the gloss coat. If it was too transparent and revealed streaks of primer it was further refined by sanding again and applying another coat of gloss. At this stage only the fineness of the final coat registered on our senses. Who else cared - or even knew - all the preparation that preceded the final coat?

I see the razors edge in the same way. Coarse edge? Not enough prep. Score marks? Not enough refinement. Won't shave? Not enough time spent getting the bevel right. Etc, etc, etc. Which brings up the quality of the edge left by an earlier hone. If the bevel is perfect, if there are no micro-chips, if there is no false edge/wire edge/burr/fin, then perfection for that particular hone has been achieved and all the characteristics, scratch pattern, etc of the hone before it has been removed.

Any of the hones we use can achieve that degree of perfection. Steel is steel, metal removal is all that counts. Can you get better than perfection? In this modern world of hyperbole where the stupidity of giving something 110% is commonplace it is tempting to answer yes, but the correct reply is of course, no. Likewise with hones.

So, if I use paste, the edge I shave with is a pasted edge. If I use a 16k hone and no paste then I am shaving off that 16k hone.

When people used to shave of 8k hones, then the jump from 8k to, say, green chrome oxide at around 30k was one hell of a jump. However, we are used to 16ks, and some of us use 20ks and 30ks, so the jump is far less and the effect of the paste much more pronounced after high grits than lower grits.

I have left stropping on fabric and leather out of the discussion. To me, they have a very refined burnishing effect too, but as we have to strop it cannot be removed from the equation, so I am treating it as having an equal effect of all edges.

Finally,

1. I talked to Dieter from the german site that used to stock the SG20, but he couldn't get a good enough cut from them, so it does not look like he will be offering them in the near future.

2. As far as Sham is concerned, he may well be a legend on his own website but he is just another honer as far as I am concerned. He is a bloke, like most of us, and like most of us he is often wrong. What works for him is great - for him. Others of us have our own ways which work perfectly well.

3. As for A-J selling eschers for cheap, I've never seen that. I even have trouble with some of his so-called 'vintage thuringians' and, like any sensible person, his vastly inflated grit ratings.

4. The type of questions we are attempting to answer have been asked by others before us, many times. The only answer is that there is no definite answer, so we are left with just our opinions. The whole thing is subjective, and no doubt with the right amount of prompting a gullible person could be led to believe that a 4k Norton was the finishing hone par excellence - remember the story of the Emperors New Clothes? That sort of self-delusion occurs every time a decent 'new' hone hits the headlines.

The above is just my opinion. It may well be worthless and wrong. But it does not matter. We can explain things in any fashion we like, no matter how outlandish, but as long as the product performs to expectations then who cares?

Regards,
Neil