Thread: Am I missing something !

An interesting observation, one that I have wondered myself for some time.

First a lot is dependent on the shaver’s ability/experience to be able to feel the difference, which would be difficult to do.

Second as said, a lot depends on the preparation and the ability of the honer, much like a paint job. If the primer was not applied properly or sanded smooth the finish will never be as good as it could be.

So here’s my theory… The goal in honing a razor is first to make the bevels meet in a sharp, straight edge.

Then maintain the sharp edge and refine it by reducing the land height while maintaining the groove (the sharp part of the edge).

Unfortunately in moving up in progression we replace the land and groove with finer stria, finer lands and grooves.

Sub-micron pastes cut the land height and leave the groove made by the finish stone. The groove it the part that shaves, the land cuts skin. The closer the two are the more comfort. Of course YMMV because there are so many variables, paste quality, grit size, substrate, pressure and on and on.

So can you finish on a high grit finish stone and paste… and tell the difference?

Maybe, it is the groove you feel from the finish stone, so if you have not altered the groove with paste maybe you could tell. But most of us do too many laps on paste and alter or remove the original groove and then it does not matter because they no longer exist.

I have said this before, I doubt most could tell a particular finishing stone in a blind test, a pasted edge even more so.

So it depends on what your goal is. If you just want a good shave, a proper synthetic progression and a 12K super stone and paste will shave 95 percent of us just fine.

There are some great pastes available now, and used in combination with a 12K SS can give incredible shaves.

Don’t get me wrong I am still collecting stones, it’s a sickness.

I've just read this thread from start to finish and it now reads like an episode from Lord of the Rings! Full of characters and very old mines, even Stephan the Grey makes an appearance. Absolutely wonderful and very informative. I still don't know or understand how to get the best edge but I'm going to continue the journey in my own way and see where I end up. Thanks to all for making my night.

Interesting thread on naturals. I'm nearly all Japanese naturals and get extremely smooth edges without any pastes, and one of the best I have is a small stone that was much cheaper than the G20k.

But there are some necessary steps for smooth edges, most of which are posted above. First is a proper bevel set. If the two bevel planes don't make a perfect line, the edge will never shave well much less be smooth. Smooth edges IME are greatly helped if all the previous stones marks are erased along the entire bevel by the current one which is good development of the edge. This can take longer than you might think, and magnification can help confirm that it's time to move on to the next hone.

With Japanese hones, it's necessary to fully work the slurry down to near exhaustion with decreasing pressure for smooth edges, that can take from 30-60 or more strokes on a bench stone more on smaller stones where the edge doesn't get the "mileage" on the hone.

Finally, with JNats you can frequently adjust the crispness of the edge by finishing with diluted slurry or clear water. A clear water finish, if the stone will support it, with produce a crisper edge. The asagis are also noted to produce crisper edges than kiitas in general because they are generally harder and finer.

As has been said before, sharp is easy, smooth is hard.

Cheers, Steve