Thread: Questions about stainless

This would be a question for all the Hone masters out the. Is stainless blades always harder to hone than carbon. So far except for my kitchen knives my two stainless razors are the only stainless blades I've had. In the past all my pocket knives have been carbon and most Solingen. My hunting knives were carbon steel . I do believe that if I weren't bald already I would have pulled out my hair with these two razors I have. The first stainless a friend got to shave for me and this one I am working on now well it's a night mare also. The first time I honed it and thought it would shave well it wouldn't. I honed it again and this time it shaved but not very good. so got out the 10X loop and saw some scratches on the bevel. went back to the finishing stone and did a few laps. in the loop I can't see any scratches so i'm waiting for the beard again. I don't have this problem with the carbon blades so is stainless this hard or am I cursed.

I just finished two razors for a friend. Both are Art of Shaving Dovo's. One is a 6/8 SS and the 5/8 is carbon steel.
The SS had a frown and the CS had hone marks from rod steel. Removed 90% of all the previous work them commenced to honing. Set the bevels on 1k W/D paper (still need a stone) then Norton 4k/8k followed up with a C12 whetstone.
Frown gone on the SS and both are HHT ready. Both took the same amount of time to complete.

I have a few stainless blades. They ar really not much different than carbon steel. I suspect your problems have less to do with them being stainless than some other factor that might affect a carbon blade as well. I actually find TI carbon song blades more quirky than the stainless ones I have.

Not much help here but I find the two steels about the same to hone up too.

Bob

Rhensley you are not alone. I have had issues with a couple vintage inox in the past. I can't say with certainty that it is due to them being inox so I don't disagree with others saying they hone the same but I just wanted you to know that I hve had this same question in the past. Eventually I got all but one shaving great but I just kept going back to the bevel with a marker and try try try until I got them.

There must have been some sort of an issue with honing vintage stainless blades (there are a few different mixes of alloys used - 'surgical steel' can be regarded as the beginnings of stainless, for instance) or else this would never had become a bit of folklore; i.e.: someone didn't just invent it for a laugh one day. Must have had some basis.

Early stainless prototypes had a lot of issues, so it took a while for decent razors to be made from it. You get different levels of hardness in plain carbon steel razors - the early W&Bs wre around 58 on the rockwell scale, while vintage Puma-Master Steel was around 60 - 61 - harder. The new carbonsong and other steels are even harder than the vintage puma-steel and a real PITA to hone on most occasions, as the people that use it for razors have a poor idea of what shave-ready means.

So - might be harder, might not. Depends on the alloy used and the tempering.

Regards,
Neil

That makes sense. The stainless blades I have are all Friodurs that appear to have been made in the last 40 or 50 years.

I have honed 2 Friodurs and another stainless, as well as a number of carbon steels, and lastly 3 TI C135 razors. Of them, the Friodur/Inox are on par with the normal carbon steels (though each razor, generally has its own feel based on grind and condition). The TI C135 were harder to hone, only in the sense it took more time to get them dialed in. As I am still learning the intricacies of pressure I tend to use more strokes with lighter pressure than the opposite, though this is evolving as my technique evolves.