Thread: First Honing

Originally Posted by Euclid440

Is one of these razors the one that was pro honed?

No, my pro-honed one I just did the Chrome Ox and it is shaving fine. These two were to try to take some dull razors picked up from eBay. So, I have a good razor (Ralf Aust from SRD) and it's shaving great!

Originally Posted by Euclid440

I did not see where you had magnification. Learning to hone without magnification is like learning to drive with your eyes closed.
As said get some magnification and strong light and first look at the bevels and straight down on the edge. That will tell you what needs to be done. It could be just a 12k touch up or a full bevel set.

I have a loupe and didn't go into detail on what I tried, but I was getting a good view of the bevel in comparison to what I started with and what I ended up with. Problem is the comparison between pro-honed near perfect razor and the butter knives I had to work with. I definitely made progress, and could see it (and feel it), but definitely had to learn a bit of "No, you actually do want the edge to look that clean."

Originally Posted by Euclid440

Once the bevel is set, you are absolutely sure it is completely set across the full length of the edge, then progress to the 4k. Hair test, tell you only the 1 micron of edge is sharp, not the rest of the edge. Your eyes will tell you when the whole bevel is set, no shinny reflections of light.

Definitely think that I've got most of the bevel set on the Boker, and only a small part on the Dovo . . . so I do think I'm going to back to work on the 1k with the Dovo and really study how it changes.

And I had zero expectations of this honing job and mainly worked on both razors because one has a strong shoulder and the other didn't (made the honing just feel different, and I apparently worked a lot better on the razor without the shoulder). The big thing is, I wanted to feel the process and see where it went. I definitely made the right strokes at times, and took a completely dull razor to being able to shave, albeit, not entirely smooth or comfortable. So, I did the right things at times, and just need to improve my consistency. Definitely now that I have a bit more knowledge/experience, I'm going to try to work on the 1k some more to see if I can get it to shave off of that before taking it up the grit ladder.

If your going to reset the bevel, be sure and remove your existing edge by cutting across a flat piece of glass.