Thread: How I hone and set my edge (a cheaters guide to setting the edge)

Ok, first and foremost I am not a pro or experienced in any way at honing. I've only been honing my razors for about 6 months at this point. I have had success in being able to make all my own razors shave ready but have struggled at times with one razor but not the next. I knew all along that the reason or issue I was having was a properly set bevel. I started off learning the basics using a Norton 4k/8k and had recently added into the mix a 1k Norton and 12k Superstone. I had a piece of glass cut the size of a sheet of sanding paper for lapping my stones. I fold up a couple towels in the sink and set the glass on these so that I can run water over it while I lap. Been happy with the results and cost effective to boot.

Back to the point of this post, bevel setting. I have about 15 razors currently all sourced from my local antique shops. Up until now I had been following what I had seen in the videos, trying to glean as much information from them as I could. The pro's will talk about the heel not being set.. and giving a few more strokes .. bam they are done and are popping hairs. All of us who are learning have watched these and wondered why our first razor honing did not go like theirs did!

What I learned is that I can't do this without a jewelers loop. I added a loop into my bag of tricks but the problem is that I don't have the eye or experience to tell when the bevel is set correctly. None of us noobs probably do. My trick that I stumbled upon is to do a quick progression up and work the blade on the higher grits while I am setting the bevel.

What this does is polishes the bevel only on the areas that are set correctly. So when I look at the edge in a loop, I see the edge being polished about 75% of the way but scratches neat the tip, I know that I have to work that area. Or I will find that most the blade polishes up but one side of the heel is not polished. I now know exactly what part of the blade I need to concentrate on to get the bevel set. I'll work that area on the 1k. Do a quick progression to polish the edge and then look at it with the loop to see if there are any areas that are not 100% correct.

I'm sure I'm not the first to do this but had not seen it described in any of the videos I had watched. This quick progression to a polished edge to find my flaws has really helped me. The pro's know by the feel of the draw on the stone or a quck glance at the edge under magnification. I needed to make it a little more obvious for my eye and this seems to do the trick.

Anyone else do it this way? If you are new to honing, get a loop and try it. Hope it helps someone else starting off.

G