Thread: A littel quality time touching up the rotation on the 12K

What I,m hearing is you keep going up before your done at the bevel setting stage, Euclid is trying to tell you that,, you will get there , even a guy like me can do it now , though I still don't like this part of shaving,, I just want to shave, but I can get a razor working now that doesn't have too many issues, I had a one on one with Randy, and believe me he didn't let me move up till the edge bevel was totally ready, tc

Yeah - that's what I'm trying to learn!

Adam

Originally Posted by tcrideshd

What I,m hearing is you keep going up before your done at the bevel setting stage, Euclid is trying to tell you that,, you will get there , even a guy like me can do it now , though I still don't like this part of shaving,, I just want to shave, but I can get a razor working now that doesn't have too many issues, I had a one on one with Randy, and believe me he didn't let me move up till the edge bevel was totally ready, tc

Spent some more time on this last night.

My goal here is to understand when to move to the next stone - which sounds easier that it apparently is to nail down. My situation is that this razor was damaged in a drop (don't ask my wife who knocked it off the stand...) so I went to a Naniwa 1K stone and worked it pretty hard to remove metal all along the edge until the damage was gone. That's a pretty severe amount of metal for a straight. I believe I was too aggressive with the 1K stone and applied too much pressure in the process - potentially flexing the blade etc etc. I had a lot of deep 1K stria and chipping as I moved up to the next stones without having removed them. Subsequently I got some edge breakdown with use as the edge was only comfortable for a couple of shaves. I picked up a drop in ocular camera for my microscope to see what was happening and posted some pics here so I could get some help. I got great help and I'm following the advice that I have received - this is the fourth round with this razor and I think I'm there. I may do one more round if this edge doesn't hold up.

As you look at these pictures - remember that this is a 200x magnification. When I look through a 60X loop - I can't see any of the lines I can see at 200x. For comparison - the first picture is a microscopic shot of the bevel line. Here you can see the polishing scratches on the shinny surface of the Dovo 5/8 razor - that's the bottom portion of the photo. Above the line you see is the start of the bevel line moving up toward the edge of the blade. See all those huge striations on the bottom of the photo? That's the general polished surface of the razor - of course to the naked eye this is highly reflective and feels like glass. At 200x magnification - you can see deep lines from the buffing process. So keep in mind that we are looking for an edge that is ultra-fine when compared to the surface of the razor. I point this out for folks who don't have any experience with a microscope - you may see what appear to huge lines after the 12K polishing - but in reality they are quite literally microscopic. This sort of underscores what we are actually doing in the honing process. This is the blade of the razor with a mirror finish:



This is the comparison photo of the bevel line to give folks some reference.


All of the following pictures are just the very edge of the blade. This only shows about half of the distance of the bevel itself.

After some 4K work


Went to the 8K to get rid of some 4K stria in order to see if the 4K took out the 1K deep stria - more at 4K


Went back and forth with 4K 8K - sort of pyramid method until I didn't see the 1K stria anymore - this is after 8K


Went to the 12K multiple rounds - very gently - and then to chromium oxide pasted leather strop.


Shaving arm hair like a champ and the shave this morning was very comfortable and very close. Thanks for the help.

Adam

Congrats on the successful hone job!