I feel like this shouldn't have worked.

So, I've been honing razors for basically as long as I've been shaving with them, which is around 7 years now. I also do it as a side business in my area as it is a nice way to increase my cash flow. I also work in a knife shop which does knife sharpening, but I never thought of the stuff we have here as any good for proper razor honing.

Anyway, a razor customer came in to drop off a razor for me to do this week while at home (I keep the razor honing separate from the knife store). It had a bit of a nick in the edge, so I taped the spine, grabbed a very worn and old fine diamond stone (thinking that I was going to redo the bevel on a 1000x water stone when I got home anyway) to get rid of the nick.

I do so and figure I should start undoing the coarseness of the diamond and grab a fine ceramic rod from the Spyderco Sharpmaker that we sometimes use for knife touch ups as a preliminary to doing the real work. I spent less than 5 minutes on it and tested it on some arm hair. It wasn't bad, so I spent maybe another 5 minutes on it. I then stropped it on leather with CrOx and then a piece of cardboard as the final stage. I was amazed to discover that it crop dusted arm hair easily and passed HHT quite well also.

This goes against all of my expectations and experience for what should work for honing a razor. I haven't shaved with it, but I'll strop it when I get home and try it out to make sure it actually shaves okay before giving it back to the customer. I don't feel like this should have worked, but it seems to have worked quite well. What do you guys think?

Edit: I should add that I have been a member on here previously under a different name when I was younger. I know that this would be an odd first post for a true newbie.

Cutting arm hair and shaving comfortably are two different beasts. I can sharpen a blade with 80 grit sand paper and get it to cut hair, but there is no way I'm putting it on my face.

With that said, the spyderco fine grit rod is comparable to 4000 grit I think and I know it is a fast cutter. In the hands of a skilled honer, it could put a nice edge on a blade, especially stainless steel.

That's my 2 cents worth.

I would never have attempted it. I can't imagine jumping that far out of my comfit zone. It takes experiment to make new discoveries. I hope your shave is better than I expect it to be, but they said Columbus was crazy in his quest for a new route to India...

Will wait for the shave report but I am betting against it. Some of that based on criswilson's 4k estimate. I shaved off a 1k once because it was crop dusting hair off my arm but I will never do it again :<0)

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Originally Posted by 10Pups

Will wait for the shave report but I am betting against it. Some of that based on criswilson's 4k estimate. I shaved off a 1k once because it was crop dusting hair off my arm but I will never do it again :<0)

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Awe come on Pups the 1K wasn't that bad. It was coarse feeling and tugged a little bit but a shave was attainable.

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Originally Posted by RefGent

Edit: I should add that I have been a member on here previously under a different name when I was younger. I know that this would be an odd first post for a true newbie.

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I suggest you contact a moderator. You probably should only be using your original username rather than adding this second one.

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Originally Posted by RezDog

Awe come on Pups the 1K wasn't that bad. It was coarse feeling and tugged a little bit but a shave was attainable.

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Maybe if I polished it with a river rock :<0)

I honed my first straight, for my second straight shave, on the Spyderco fine and ultrafine rods because that was the best I had at the time. After comparing that edge to a professionally honed edge a week or two later, I found I had not done half bad. The narrowness of the rods seemed ridiculous at the time, but now that I use X strokes almost exclusively the narrowness would not bother me. I may have to do another razor this way some time to see how it works, and revisit my beginnings.

You may want to take a look at the edge with some magnification, before you turn your face into corduroy.

The other issue is, using diamond to bevel set leaves deep stria, that often cause chipping at higher grits. So even if you do get an edge, it may crumble on you after stropping.

Simply looking at the edge will tell you a lot about how it will shave.

I have seen it said some other places that the Spyderco Fine is 8k and the Ultra Fine is 13k. I don't know how founded that is though. It is mostly the jump from fine diamond to something closer to a finishing stone that surprised me and how smooth the edge seemed to be and how smoothly it cut hair with literally 15 minutes of work at most. The diamond stone was quite fine and quite worn, so I would say that it was functionally at least 1k in terms of scratch pattern.

As far as comfort zones go, I work in a knife shop part time, which is part retail and part sharpening service. I sharpen a lot of different things there and am the most experienced sharpener there. I even do hair scissors for a number of stylists that are worth upwards of $200, so I'm used to handling other peoples items a lot and trying different things. My other job is in a designated full-service sharpening shop, so I spend around 30 hours a week making various things sharp.

Anyway, onto the shave report:

In essence, it wasn't bad. I checked the edge after stropping it for 50 laps and it looked clean and smooth. It cut well WTG and for the most part was as comfortable as any other shave I've done with fully polished edges. ATG was where things got a bit dicey. It certainly wasn't as comfortable as other edges have been and I was probably more careful than normal, knowing it wasn't polished as much. I did get a couple of minor nicks anyway, but my aftershave didn't burn more than usual. I also have notoriously sensitive skin and coarse hair, which is why I switched to wet shaving all those years ago. I will need to spend some more time on it, but considering that it was 4 stages from start to finish involving a diamond stone and cardboard is why I say not bad. It's been a few hours and my face feels great still.

Well your one of those guys that could put an edge on it with a brick and finish on a river rock :<0) The average guy would not be wise to try this. Me for example. I was thinking after my last post that the amount of time the edge spends on a round rod compared to the time the whole edge is on a stone would hardly make it worth the attempt. It sounds like it was a great experiment for you and turned out well. Wise to do on a regular basis ?

Apologies, I should have mention that the Spyderco Sharpmaker rods are triangular and I honed it on a flat side.

Definitely unwise to do on a regular basis. More of a novelty in regard to what can be done as opposed to what should be done.

So when you guys sharpen a knife edge, you don’t look at it with magnification?

For razors, sharp is a given… a razor must shave smoothly for comfort. Getting to sharp is easy, it’s the comfort part that gives knife guys a problem. A few second and a 3 dollar loupe will tell you a lot about how it will shave across the whole edge, before you put it to your skin.

I am more surprised, that you don’t look at the edge of a $200 scissor, before calling it good…

I've never encountered a knife that would need that kind of treatment. Maybe the lab techs that use those devices to look at slices of brain matter, but I don't sharpen the blades they use. Even the chefs from the nicer restaurants in the area would lose the work needed to make magnification valid after steeling. The same applies to the meat cutters I know. Do you know of any knife wielding professionals that need, want, or expect that? Much less the average home cook with their $50 set of Cuisinarts?

Nerve endings in the fingers are sensitive enough to detect up to a nanometer in variation. After feeling edges for that many hours you know what the right edge for the job feels like.

Odd, that it would not shave comfortably, against the grain…

Doesn't seem odd to me Marty. After all, that is the true test of a smooth edge for me. And I never heard of looking at any kind of edge under glass until I started honing straights. Almost a must do in that case because there is no way to see the edge without it. When I was learning knives it was all about thumb pad. My Pop said you either get it so sharp it's doesn't stay that way long or you get it just sharp enough to do the job. Needless to say I can sharpen my own just enough to do the job :<0)