Thread: need help with honing!

Hi guys,
I have a old H Boker extra hallow razor here, I've had it over two years and bought off ebay. However just recently i found out you need to lap stones before use.... So i lap my hones with 90 grit sand paper on my kitchen floor the best i can then honed the razor and it has gotten substantially duller in the center. Today i went out and bought a marble tile, come to find out i think lapping on kitchen floor wasnt the best idea, okay so now my hone is flat for sure! i did the marker test (MMT) comes to find out that my razor is being sharpened in the center only on both sides, not touching the heel or toe. I'm fine with that as i have a slight smile blade going on and both the heel and toe are very sharp. QUESTION:since i have a slight smile do i have to do rolling Xs to get the center sharp? or can the center get sharp with doing normal Xs?
More info: Might be that my hone (grey) produces a slurry and dulls out the blade, i think the hone is 6k but not sure at all. i did get the razor sharp enough to shave against the grain of my thick hairs using the hone and strop. How ever i was never able to get my wade and butcher semi wedge sharp enough for my face.
I'll be posting pictures very soon, my camera is charging

this is the best image i can find

My hone

Ok well there are a few things. First off the most important part of any edge is the bevel set. It needs to be a perfect apex from one end of the blade to the other. This is best accomplished with a 1K hone, it can be done on a 4K but that is really taking the scenic route. I am a big fan of gssixgun's honing videos. They are on youtube. I know there are a bunch of different ones. There are many paths to the perfect edge. If you try to follow all of them you will likely get lost. I like Glen's instruction so I kept with it until I was better able to understand the process and then looked to other to see what they were doing. The bevel is the foundation of you edge and should be give the greatest amount of your focus.
https://www.youtube.com/user/gssixgu...lf_id=0&view=0

Here are a few steps that will work for you.
1. Bevel set. You need a low grit stone for that, usually 1k.
2. medium stone such as 3k/4k/5k
3. finishing stone 8k/10k or 12k
4. strop

Since you have a slight smile on your razor, use the magic marker trick to figure out what stroke works best to get full contact between bevel and stone. Typically rolling x-stroke works very well, but you may be fine with heel leading x-stroke.
The hone you have now is not sufficient to produce a shave ready edge. The stone looks natural to me, but it does not matter what it is , it will either set bevel, which makes it too coarse for good shaving edge, or it is too fine to set bevel without a long work on it.

From your description of your hone, looks like you will need to add a 1k, 3k, and a 10/12k. Depending on how fast your hone is , you may be able to get by without the 3k stage.

Originally Posted by mainaman

Here are a few steps that will work for you.
1. Bevel set. You need a low grit stone for that, usually 1k.
2. medium stone such as 3k/4k/5k
3. finishing stone 8k/10k or 12k
4. strop

Since you have a slight smile on your razor, use the magic marker trick to figure out what stroke works best to get full contact between bevel and stone. Typically rolling x-stroke works very well, but you may be fine with heel leading x-stroke.
The hone you have now is not sufficient to produce a shave ready edge. The stone looks natural to me, but it does not matter what it is , it will either set bevel, which makes it too coarse for good shaving edge, or it is too fine to set bevel without a long work on it.

From your description of your hone, looks like you will need to add a 1k, 3k, and a 10/12k. Depending on how fast your hone is , you may be able to get by without the 3k stage.

Okay thanks alot of info here, can i slurry of my 6k with 220 grit sand paper to set the bevel? i do have a 12k shapton pro cream coming this week, ill have to see the difference between that and my grey one. i do have another stone... huge difference from the grey stone

You can slurry with sand paper, only danger is if grit particles from the sand paper fall in the slurry, you risk to mess up the bevels and edge.
Whether your slurried stone will be good for bevel set I do not know, typically 6k stones are not good bevel setters.

Originally Posted by mainaman

You can slurry with sand paper, only danger is if grit particles from the sand paper fall in the slurry, you risk to mess up the bevels and edge.
Whether your slurried stone will be good for bevel set I do not know, typically 6k stones are not good bevel setters.

ahh okay, makes sense. i can shave with the 6k stone, so if im using part sand paper slurry chances are good that i have scratch marks on the edge and the 6k would take forever or almost never take out the scratch marks right? thus forcing me to get a 3k

Is it just me or is there a yellow side to that stone? Maybe wet pictures of both sides would help. May have a coti bbw combo. Excuse if wrong. Am also quite new to honing game.

Originally Posted by RichCal

ahh okay, makes sense. i can shave with the 6k stone, so if im using part sand paper slurry chances are good that i have scratch marks on the edge and the 6k would take forever or almost never take out the scratch marks right? thus forcing me to get a 3k

If I were you, I'd get a good 1k and forego the 3k. Of coarse I am basing my advise on the premise that you have a 6k hone, and that it is good enough to remove 1k scratch pattern.