Thread: Honing succes

I have been honing for months and months without getting the results I wanted. I was really getting frustrated with it all.
Until a couple of days ago!

I recently acquired a Thuringian hone and this has made my journey endlessly easier.

The Thuringian makes a fine finisher and that's apparently what I had been missing for the entire time.
I have Coticules, but I cannot yet replicate the edges from the Thuringian on the Cotis.


I usually use a Coti + slurry or BBW + slurry to set and perfect the bevel, depending on how much work the razor needs.
If I use the Coti with slurry I always go to the BBW on slurry afterwards, I dilute the slurry on my BBW to very watery slurry and look for the razor to undercut along the entire edge.
This way my BBW leaves a very nice sharp refined edge, I know people have been able to use a bbw with very light slurry to finish their razors, but I haven't been able to get acceptable shaving results this way, eventhough the edges from the BBW get very good HHT results.

After that I go to a Coticule with plain water, or sometimes light slurry and finish on plain water. This leaves a very good edge, but not yet what I wanted, I have a couple of Cotis and have yet to figure out how to get the most out of them.

Here is where the Thuringian comes in. I could've gone with plain water probably, but I decided to raise a slurry and dilute it to plain water.
After a while on plain water the razor started to stick to the hone like crazy, I almost couldn't drag my razor through the water over the hone anymore. I'm sure this was a sign. I dried the razor, stropped it up and shaved with it; and I was amazed.

I have been working on two razors and have test shaved them maybe 10 times and it was never satisfactory, always got some pull and irritation. But now I got none of that.

I have only finished two razors this way, a Boker and a Henckels, they both shave smooth and sharp now, no pulling whatsoever, which really astounded me, I almost couldn't believe it. The irritation is non-existent, very forgiving.

I have also adjusted my stropping method turning the razor using the fingers and not the hand, I feel this has also had a good impact on it all.

All in all, this has made me very happy!

Cheers!


Btw, I have ruined more than a couple of razors in my journey, creating excessive hone wear, using too much pressure, etc. etc. and my budget practice strop is a bit cut up, oops!

While I love the smoothness of the Coti, nothing in my modest hone collection beats the sharpness that my green Thuringian delivers. Occasionally when it's too keen for me I use a leaded strop to polish the edge and help calm it down. Works very well for me so far.

Ya have to love it when it all comes together, Glad for you Tristan.

I have always preferred the feel of a coticule or feedback, if you will, and the shave was smooth but missing that keenness to give me a BBS shave easily. My "breakthrough" was an Arkansas translucent. I'm glad you found a hone that brings you success. Everywhere you research about them, thuringen/eschers are praised for their effectiveness. Congrats!!

Great story. I love reading about others success. Congratulations . Interesting that all you needed was a finisher. I always seeing it being debated on BB if a coti is a true finisher... I think so but for others no.

It's what keeps this forum interesting. We're all different.

I really wanted the coti to do it for me, but so far I wasn't able to get it to perfection
These Thüringer hones sure feel good to hone on, I have found my preference ... for now

So, while it’s great you got a shaving edge, it is the lack of a complete bevel set, were most have an issue and blame the finisher. The BBW is aggressive, but not that aggressive, a good 1K will easily set a bevel that can then be finished on naturals, especially for new honers. Good magnification will tell you when you have a complete bevel.

A coticule, once mastered is a very nice shaving edge, depending on the stone, but they are one of the most difficult stones to learn because of the slurry.

A good Thüringen is the 12k Super Stone of its day and will put a good shaving edge on a properly set bevel.

There is no need to ruin a razor learning to hone, a couple pieces of tape would have saved those razors. Tape until you master honing, then decide if you want to continue to tape, but really don’t see a benefit of not using tape.

And yes, until you master stropping or at least strop where you are not doing damage, you will be undoing any good you are doing on the hones. If you are cutting your strop, you are going too fast and not stopping before the flip, and that just once, will ruin an edge.

Originally Posted by Euclid440

So, while it’s great you got a shaving edge, it is the lack of a complete bevel set, were most have an issue and blame the finisher. The BBW is aggressive, but not that aggressive, a good 1K will easily set a bevel that can then be finished on naturals, especially for new honers. Good magnification will tell you when you have a complete bevel.

A coticule, once mastered is a very nice shaving edge, depending on the stone, but they are one of the most difficult stones to learn because of the slurry.

A good Thüringen is the 12k Super Stone of its day and will put a good shaving edge on a properly set bevel.

There is no need to ruin a razor learning to hone, a couple pieces of tape would have saved those razors. Tape until you master honing, then decide if you want to continue to tape, but really don’t see a benefit of not using tape.

And yes, until you master stropping or at least strop where you are not doing damage, you will be undoing any good you are doing on the hones. If you are cutting your strop, you are going too fast and not stopping before the flip, and that just once, will ruin an edge.

This advice is spot on in every aspect. Most all of us will recommend learning to hone with tape. Heck, when I know there is going to be a bit of work on the bevel set...I too will use tape.

Hey guys,

yes indeed, before I visited forums I didn't use the tape, that's when I ruined a couple of razors.
After that I always used tape on everything, until I got better at honing, it sure helped me out plenty of times!

A little update,

this past week has been very busy, so I wasn't able to shave for a week or so.

Today I decided to pick up a razor I inherited and decided to finish up the honing routine I had started on the razor a couple of weeks ago.
Back then I tried to go from the BBW with very light slurry to go directly to the Thuringian, but the results weren't satisfying for me. I definitely missed my Coticule in the progression, it does seem to matter quite a bit!

I had set the bevel on a Coticule with slurry, then refined the edge on a BBW with slurry and some dilutions.
I now picked up my razor and went to the Coticule with plain water, this really seems to smooth out the edge a lot.
After the Coti with plain water I went to a Yellow Green Thurinian with plain water.

I face lathered some DR Harris Lavender, stropped the blade and proceeded to shave.
Since I didn't have much time, I decided to try something and see how that would work out. I went ATG on my first and only pass with a week's growth.
The blade didn't pull the slightest bit and it felt smooth. No irritation, no cuts.
I was a little stunned, but am amazingly happy I can reproduce results on different blades with both my Yellow Green and Blue Green Thuringian hones.
Hard to tell the difference between the YG and BG, but they both produced very keen and smooth edges. Very much to my liking.