Thread: Noob honer in need of encouragement/advice

just got 1,5,8k naniwa super stones last week and got one razor honed with success but spent hours working on the second with no luck. i'm almost ready to sell me stones and give up! it's a clauss that had a little rust but i didn't think too bad. no matter what i did it didn't look like i was making any progress on the bevel setting. my first one i had to go back and start over (bevel set, then pyramid method). thought i figured out what i was doing wrong and fixed it. i looked for the glimmer of light on the edge(with a loupe) to disappear than proceeded with the 5 and 8k. couldn't ever get the light to disappear on this one. finally tried the thumbnail test and thought it felt like it was smooth. dull as can be. just seems like now progress is being made on the hones. even went back the DMT course. HELP. how do i know when the bevel is set? none of the "tests" seem to work and i'm running out of arm/leg hair to test it on.

To start, use a black marker on the edge and go back and set the bevel again on the 1K. Have you seen Lynn Abrams' video on honing with naniwa ss? Lots of good info there.

Post back here about your progress and photographs with the clauss, ok?

Kind Regards,
S

ps-pictures. spine wear? blade geometry? I know the keen eyes see hear what I may miss. There is quite a bit to address here and much more info needed.

Don't give up! Watch as many videos as you can. And again, and again, and again. Try different methods if you can. Keep at it. The HHT is vague and can give mixed results. I have not had very good results with that but I can get decent shaves. I believe I will get better in time and so will you. I use a King 1K for my bevel setting, and a Norton 4000K/8000K combination stone. I can shave with that but I also finish up on an Arkansas black translucent. Quite a leap from the 8k but with a lot of laps it works for me while I work on my soft Arkansas and my black Arkansas stones. Maybe you can find a Mentor near you that would be willing to help you one on one! Don't give up!


Mike

Don't give up! Are the stones flat (lapped)? What said above, watch videos, marker test, different methods and don't move forward if bevel not set. Use Nail thumb test for that.

What you are experiencing is the most difficult part of honing. Not knowing what to expect from each grit makes it very hard. Your first stumbling block is knowing if the bevel is set. One of the tests for a bevel is if it will cut arm/leg hair. Since you are running out of that, I assume it's set. As DoubleO suggested, the thumb nail test is good. When you feel the edge grab a wet thumb nail and grip it rather than slide over it, you have a bevel. Ok so what's next? If you've been working on a 1k hone, the bevel and edge are very raw at this point and full of serrations. So at this point you want to almost reset the bevel again with your 5k stone. I say reset because your trying to eliminate the 1k profile and re-establish it again with the 5k stone. This one is tough because the difference between them is not that obvious. I recommend good magnification to see what is happening. You'll want to look very closely at the depth of the scratches after you set the bevel. Then, as you begin to work the edge on the 5k, watch how those scratches are replaced by new ones that are less aggressive. Keep an eye on the very edge and be sure it's straight and clean, no dips and valleys. It should now be cutting what is left of your arm/leg hair easier than before. These steps are hard because you are assuming you've done all that you can at this level. Maybe you have, and maybe not. The next step is the refinement point where the edge really comes into it's own. Polishing on the 8k should even out what little serrations there are and form a smooth and shave ready edge. Again, you want the very edge smooth and clean. At this point those scratches will be shallow and light. It should be cutting hair easily and shaving fairly well. Spend some time reading and getting an idea of what to expect from each grit.

Is it the first time you've honed this razor? If it was used and previously honed it may had tape on the spine. If that's the case and you were honing without tape you may not have honed the very edge at all. Just a thought.

Originally Posted by tintin

just got 1,5,8k naniwa super stones last week and got one razor honed with success but spent hours working on the second with no luck. i'm almost ready to sell me stones and give up! ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.

You have got one razor to a comfortable successful shave, but not all razors perform the same on the stone. Each one is an individual & honed according to it's needs.

If you spent hours on it, you spent too much time. You become frustrated & develop tunnel vision on one aspect of the honing, which may be something that is perfectly fine,,,, such as the bevel. You probably set a good bevel on it, but sense you cannot proceed through the higher grits, you focus/tunnel vision by to the bevel. More than likely, your obstacle is what OCDShaver told you.

I had a Boker kick my a$$ for 2 days, a month after my honing journey started. I put it away & revisited it 3 years later. I brought it to shave ready in 45 minutes.
When honing becomes a struggle, burden or a frustration,,, you are already losing the fight. Maybe give it some time & hone a few more successes before you re-visit her. JMO

Think about the difference in "Honing" vs. "Restoring"
Many who start learning to hone start with razors that are in pretty bad shape.
My breakout came when I started maintaining razors that had been honed by a pro but had degraded over months. After bringing several back to OMG wonderful I had success with an ebay find with no "damage" and just a few flea bite chips.

Don't quit!!!

I use the Naniwa #400, #1000, #3000, #5000, #8000, #12000 and I find that they are slow going.
Maybe it's just my technique but it takes me a long time to get a blade edge just right.

I originally used the #1000 to set the bevel but found my patience stretched to the limit, so I
bought the #400 to start the bevel setting before moving on to the #1000 to complete the process.

One layer of tape is all I need for my purposes, changed with each step up in the honing process.
Hope this helps and please post some pics to show us your progress

tintin,

Try ten (10) passes on the 5k using stropping-like pass (spine leading), then proceed as normal on the 8k.

Sometimes the light relected from the edge is a 'micro fin', and the stropping pass should remove it.

There are some discussions on the InterWeb about removing the existing edge entirely (gentle pass of edge accross side of fine hone), then re-cutting the bevel into 'fresh steel'. This is a bit contentious and mostly seems to be related to knives, but you never lnow !

Might be worth a try, and any experimental data you get would be most interesting for us

Good luck !

Have fun

Best regards

Russ