Thread: Microscope for honing

What we have to remember is tons of new guys read these threads, some years later and believe everything some people write, like another recent thread where a new guy thinks, tape is cheating, he probably read that somewhere…

So you may not do somethings or feel you don’t need others. What we are trying to do is give advice that will set new guys up for success and keep them in the hobby. Something like magnification, ink and tape will only make their success easier.

Once they learn how to hone they can decide if, they want to continue to use these tools.

Originally Posted by Euclid440

You don’t need magnification, if you can see that both bevels are fully meeting in a straight edge, from heel to toe and that all chips are removed.

I would contend that you cant see this with the naked eye. I marker pen each side of a dulled edge and set on a 1K hone until marker removed and the edge breezes through arm hair job done. How wrong was I. At x 300 you can see all sorts going on. For example scratch pattern not going right to the edge, rat bites, toes/heels off the hone. This becomes even more apparent and harder to deal with when you move up the grit range. The finer grits are capable of polishing a toothy edge and still pass hht or other edge probing methods. Let me tell ya the marker pen had long gone before these bevels were anything near set. How have I dealt with these artifacts in the past? well gone back to my lapped chosera 1K and corrected the bevel (tricky stuff) and I soon learned how surprisingly long I had to stay on each stone.
Remember the bevel should only really needs to be set once and includes the spine wear. I only do it on new razors I make, or poorly ground or honed razors and am happy to use tape afterward. Unnecessarily rolling the heel/toe when honing can make the above task more difficult IMO. I also have the luxury of being able to regrind my hollows if I get fat bevels/spine wear as a result.

Originally Posted by Deckard

I would contend that you cant see this with the naked eye. I marker pen each side of a dulled edge and set on a 1K hone until marker removed and the edge breezes through arm hair job done. How wrong was I. At x 300 you can see all sorts going on. For example scratch pattern not going right to the edge, rat bites, toes/heels off the hone. This becomes even more apparent and harder to deal with when you move up the grit range. The finer grits are capable of polishing a toothy edge and still pass hht or other edge probing methods. Let me tell ya the marker pen had long gone before these bevels were anything near set. How have I dealt with these artifacts in the past? well gone back to my lapped chosera 1K and corrected the bevel (tricky stuff) and I soon learned how surprisingly long I had to stay on each stone.
Remember the bevel should only really needs to be set once and includes the spine wear. I only do it on new razors I make, or poorly ground or honed razors and am happy to use tape afterward. Unnecessarily rolling the heel/toe when honing can make the above task more difficult IMO. I also have the luxury of being able to regrind my hollows if I get fat bevels/spine wear as a result.

You said correcting the bevel is "Tricky Stuff", roughly how do you go about this and have you ever considered making video clips ?

What is your method of setting a bevel?

Originally Posted by JOB15

You said correcting the bevel is "Tricky Stuff", roughly how do you go about this and have you ever considered making video clips ?

Sorry, I was being sarcastic. I need to reign that in.

Originally Posted by JOB15

You said correcting the bevel is "Tricky Stuff", roughly how do you go about this and have you ever considered making video clips ?

The videos are out there. There's a guy on this forum who I got most of this from, I think he goes by drmatt something or other. Will look for the links

Here you go.

Originally Posted by Deckard

Here you go.

All my razors wobble ,maybe full hollows are more likely to be flat .
I don't know id I have the guts to try and flatten out a blade, I could try it with my 1200 Atoma..

Maybe just stick to rolling X's and if I need add a micro bevel.

Yup, just some tape and a slight rolling X stroke, is all you need.

The guy that Matt talks about is one who is vehemently anti tape and believes spines should wear with the edge, that “tape will ruin the razor”.

No need to go to such extreme, very few razors are perfectly flat…

Here's another one about magnification

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAbAToeM5hU