Honing - "Look" before you Leap

[gssixgun]

One of the first things I do before I even touch a Hone is LOOK at the razor..


I make sure of course it is in good repair, that the pins are tight, so they are not flopping around when I try to hone and strop the razor that there are no cracks, I check to see that it closes centered .. Nothing worse then spending all the time honing then to slam the new fine edge into the side of the scales

I do BOTH versions on the TNT to check the integrity of the edge, and feel for issues, this is just something that should be second nature..

a. TNT running the edge of the razor down the thumb nail to feel for the condition of the edge, feeling for sharpness and roughness
b. TNT running the side of the bevel down over the thumbnail to create a small bulge in the bevel of a Hollow Grind razor, this will revel and hidden cracks, and often will let you feel for pitting in the side of the bevel..


A quick check for the condition of the overall shape of the edge can be done by holding the razor up and sighting against a bright light or window, turn the razor so it goes Black against the light so you are looking at the silhouette it can show a frown really quick.. (yes that is snow out there, we got a dusting last night)




So can looking at the edge above a known Straight Edge , but the Silhouette trick is faster and you don't get the uneven bevel error in there.. If the bevel is uneven it can deceive your eye into thinking there is a frown when there isn't..





Here is a progression of what evaluating an edge looks like


I start with just the Mark A-1 Eyeball to see what there is to see



Look closer



Do you see it ???


At 30X everything become clear, you can of course go much higher if you want, I have just never found any advantage to anything much higher then 40-60X myself... You can of course see in these shots that the bevel is uneven on this razor.. You would obviously look at both the front and the back of the razor bevel..














This is just a AOS TI that is the first one across the hones this morning so I decided to take some time and do pics while I did my testing hoping that it might help if you see what I see when I look at a razor BEFORE it hits the hones...



So what is your diagnosis of this razor ???? what issues do you see ???