Quick question about honing

[drogo]

I have an 8K norton waterstone, and a couple of straight razors. One is a very nice stainless Dovo from classicshaving.com, and the other is a $10 ebay special (high carbon). I picked it up to practice honing so that I don't mess up the Dovo.

I've read over the posts here, and they all refer to the 4K/8K stone, which I don't have (the 8K was a gift along with the Dovo). I assume I can just use the 8K, but it will take longer, correct? I'd rather not have to pick up another stone, and am willing to wait for the edge to develop more slowly. Hopefully that will also prevent me from over-honing.

Also, I've tried to hone the high-carbon one, but had almost no results. I think I'm not honing enough. I saw a post saying that the person expected to perform 100 passes or so on the 4K, then move up to the 8K. I recall that when I first tried to hone my razor, I only did about 20-30, since I thought that it would hone quickly due to it's thinness. But I guess that it takes (much) longer being 8K.

After the honing, I have my strop ready to go. I'm looking forward to putting my shavette into the travel bag, and using the Dovo on a regular basis.

[JoshEarl]

Hmmm. This is an interesting question. Can you hone a razor on just the 8K? I suppose you could.

You're likely to have better luck with the Dovo. The eBay special will take a very, very, very long time to hone up on just the 8K.

You might want to consider buying a less expensive 4K waterstone from Woodcraft.com or some of the other sources out there. For less than $30 you could probably get a second stone that would make life a lot easier.

To hone an eBay special on just the 8K you'd probably need to do thousands of strokes, so it's no surprise that you're not seeing much progress. You might try using 1K sandpaper to reset the bevel, then going to 2K sandpaper to give it some polish before going to the 8K. My experience with sandpaper, though, is that it rounds the bevel, which means you need to spend quite a bit of time honing on a 1K or 4K hone to get it flattened out again.

The option I'd recommend is sending it out for an initial honing, then using the 8K for touchups.

Good luck,
Josh

[Lynn]

100 strokes on any stone is pretty much. On the 4K/8K and with a new SS, you could probably get by with a 5-5, 3-3, 1-5, 1-7 pyramid and get pretty close.

Good luck.

Lynn

[drogo]

Hmm, Ok. So 100 is too much.

I've been sharpening regular knives for a long time, but this definitely seems to requires a different touch.

I see what you're saying about the ebay razor being more trouble, it's further out from a good edge. It's also got a sizable nick in the center of the blade. (Yipes)

I'll try some light honing on the SS and see if that gets it closer, if not, I'll go ahead and pick up a 4K stone somewhere.

Thanks!

[Sunsi]

You did flatten the stone first?

Si

[drogo]

No, but the stone is brand new. I assumed that it would be OK for a bit until it wore down somewhat.

I will check it with a straightedge when I get home to make sure.

[Howard]

Honing is a progressive process that goes from the more coarse to the more fine. You're right that it will take a longer time to hone a dull razor on an 8k norton waterstone than it would if you started on the 4k side and then went to the 8k and then stropped with leather. When you've started to get consistent results with the 8k, move on to a coticule, escher, or thuringian and you'll see a big difference.