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Thread: Carbon steel and stainless steel

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    Senior Member sheajohnw's Avatar
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    My Friodurs shave well, although each one can feel a little different, even the ones that have the same model number and should be identical.

    I wonder whether you may be over honing on the high grit hones and diamond pasted strop. Some report that too many strokes on synthetic high grit hones will microchip the edge leading to a very harsh shave. If the bevel is set well at the 8K level, a lot of strokes should not be needed on aggressive high grit finishing hones. It is important to know when to stop.

    I hone on a 1K King, 6K King, and then transition to an 8K Norton. The Kings were originally acquired for my kitchen knives. After the 8K hone, I finish on a TM 4 sided paddle strop pasted with 3, 1, and 0.5 micron diamonds before stropping on unpasted linen and latigo leather.

    I try only 5 - 10 strokes on the pasted strops and then about 40 linen/60 Latigo on my unpasted hanging strop. If a shave test tells me that I am not where I want to be, I repeat on the 8K Norton, pasted strops, and unpasted hanging strop. This usually gets me a good shave. I often find that the edge will become more gentle over a few shave/stropping cycles before reaching a stable plateau of keenness/comfort for many weeks of shaving.

    I do not have a line-up of expensive synthetic and natural hones to research what could work even better, but this has been working well enough for me on both stainless and carbon steel razors. However, I am tempted to acquire and try a 20K Gokumyo hone to see whether I can reach a higher degree of comfort, but I cannot yet get by its $200++ price.

    Worst case scenario would be to send the stainless to a pro for a new bevel and set up. If it is a good blade, it should then shave well comfortably and be easy to strop and refresh well after that.
    Last edited by sheajohnw; 03-24-2015 at 09:55 PM.

  2. #12
    (John Ayers in SRP Facebook Group) CaliforniaCajun's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sheajohnw View Post
    My Friodurs shave well, although each one can feel a little different, even the ones that have the same model number and should be identical.

    I wonder whether you may be over honing on the high grit hones and diamond pasted strop. Some report that too many strokes on synthetic high grit hones will microchip the edge leading to a very harsh shave. If the bevel is set well at the 8K level, a lot of strokes should not be needed on aggressive high grit finishing hones. It is important to know when to stop.

    I hone on a 1K King, 6K King, and then transition to an 8K Norton. The Kings were originally acquired for my kitchen knives. After the 8K hone, I finish on a TM 4 sided paddle strop pasted with 3, 1, and 0.5 micron diamonds before stropping on unpasted linen and latigo leather.

    I try only 5 - 10 strokes on the pasted strops and then about 40 linen/60 Latigo on my unpasted hanging strop. If a shave test tells me that I am not where I want to be, I repeat on the 8K Norton, pasted strops, and unpasted hanging strop. This usually gets me a good shave. I often find that the edge will become more gentle over a few shave/stropping cycles before reaching a stable plateau of keenness for many weeks of shaving.

    I do not have a line-up of expensive synthetic and natural hones to research what could work even better, but this has been working well enough for me on both stainless and carbon steel razors. However, I am tempted to acquire and try a 20K Gokumyo hone to see whether I can reach a higher degree of comfort, but I cannot yet get by its $200++ price.

    Worst case scenario would be to send the stainless to a pro for a new bevel set. If it is a good blade, it should then shave comfortably and be easy to strop and refresh well after that.
    If the results are not up to snuff something is wrong. I am not going to do anything rash. But I made a promise that I wouldn't straight shave unless I could attend to my own blades. Otherwise it defeats the purpose of finding a viable alternative to the horrible experience I had with cartridge razors.

    Straight razor shaver and loving it!
    40-year survivor of electric and multiblade razors

  3. #13
    Senior Member blabbermouth bluesman7's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CaliforniaCajun View Post
    there is stickiness when I move my thumb laterally across the edge.
    In my house, this is an extreme no no. If shaving at a high angle dulls a blade, this has got to be worse. YMMV

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    Know thyself holli4pirating's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bluesman7 View Post
    In my house, this is an extreme no no. If shaving at a high angle dulls a blade, this has got to be worse. YMMV
    I think shaving at a high angle is worse for your face than the blade, and TPT is, IMO, a good test at all levels if you know what you are doing. I wouldn't describe it as "moving the thumb across the edge," but I assumed that was just a matter of word choice.

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    the deepest roots TwistedOak's Avatar
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    to add to the comment about SS being hard and therefore requiring more honing time. Isn't carbon steel generally "softer" and easier to put an edge on than Stainless?
    If my memory is correct, then that would make using the same honing routine for both steels a recipe for 50% success at best. I would use a minimum circle/stroke benchmark on a bevel setting stone for any type of razor, but only as a reference for when to start checking if the bevel is fully set. Then continue on as each individual razor requires.

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    Tradesman s0litarys0ldier's Avatar
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    To my limited understanding and reading the pyramid honing guide. Stainless steel only requires more polishing strokes. It is the same to sharpen yet takes a few more to get it in tip top shape. This is only what I read. My SS blade takes more polishing strokes but sharpens just as fast as my carbon. (Disclaimer I do no use the pyramid, just drew a conclusion from reading it.) Those blades you've got aren't the same manufacturer are they? I didn't think so. Could be geometry differences between them. Hard to tell. Just my 2 cents. Take it or leave it haha

  7. #17
    Senior Member blabbermouth
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    Quote Originally Posted by TwistedOak View Post
    to add to the comment about SS being hard and therefore requiring more honing time. Isn't carbon steel generally "softer" and easier to put an edge on than Stainless?
    If my memory is correct, then that would make using the same honing routine for both steels a recipe for 50% success at best. I would use a minimum circle/stroke benchmark on a bevel setting stone for any type of razor, but only as a reference for when to start checking if the bevel is fully set. Then continue on as each individual razor requires.
    The stainless on older razors is probably actually a softer spec, but the carbides that are in it are much harder than any plain carbon and iron mix.

    On new razors, I don't think a lot of the carbon razors themselves are really that hard, so it's hard to say.

    When you use tools, and you get to high speed steels and other highly alloyed abrasion resistant steels, when they are equal hardness, the carbides make the high speed steels or hard stainless type steels much harder to abrade on a stone.

    I would imagine that the friodurs are probably 440C or some reasonable approximation of it, because that would be a good inexpensive stainless that hardens and tempers well in the 58-60 range of hardness. They are cryo treating the razors to disperse the carbides and make them much more uniform and integrated into the steel matrix, so you might never notice that something is even stainless in terms of sharpenability if it's a click or two softer and cryo treated.

    Cheap stainless will have large carbides, and non cryo stuff that is loaded with carbides (like D2) will often fail with tiny chips early, and then retain whatever edge is left after that for a very long time.

    Anyway, it's my supposition after running into these steels with woodworking that if they were to do anything to make sure that stainless was sharpenable on natural stones, it would be to cryo treat it and then make it a tick or two softer on the C hardness scale so that it retains sharpenability. 62 hardness 440C or steels like D2 are not particularly friendly to natural stones (D2 has a lot of chromium, IIRC).

    If you are using synthetics, you can disregard most of this unless the steel you're using (if you get a custom razor) has a bunch of vanadium carbides in it. If it does, even aluminum oxide or alundum type stones (like pretty much all of the synthetics we use are made of) are softer than those carbides.

    There's a nice chart at the bottom of this page with knoop hardness of various things.
    https://www.tedpella.com/Material-Sc...ng_Systems.htm

    Carburized steel is around 800, aluminum oxide is around 2100, chromium carbides (like you'd have in 440C) at 1735. When you get to nutty stuff like vanadium carbides, it's 2660 on that chart (there are a lot of knives made now with vanadium carbides in them in droves, which I have no clue why anyone would want that).

    Anyway, when you're using an abrasive like quartz or silicon dioxide or novaculite that's barely harder than carburized steel, then it won't cut chromium carbides. Thus they have to be dispersed or you'll have nodules of unsharpenable material. You can help that along by making the overall steel a little softer after the carbides have been evenly dispersed.

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