Thread: 'Touching' up a 4/8 Sheffield with Arkansas stones

Having been buoyed by my recent success with honing a vintage, favorite razor (thanks again Euchlid440), I tackled another vintage Sheffield that had not been shaving well at all. It had been pro-honed last year but started tugging and I tried to touch it up but could never get it to shave well again. After some enlightening mentoring help, I finally got my Arkansas stones flat and my translucent burnished.
Before starting I inspected the edge under a loupe and it actually looked perfect; invisible. So I marked the edge with a sharpie and ran it on my Hard stone and saw the entire edge was not making contact; pretty significant spine wear and uneven. So I used a layer of tape and was able to get the bevel to contact the stone completely (took some time, and many changes of tape, in retrospect it probably would have been better to go with two layers of tape).
Went to the finishing translucent and probably did 250 laps.
Was admiring my work with the loupe and 'TINK', touched the loupe to the edge. Sat there stunned. Now that invisible edge wasn't so invisible now. Tell me I'm not the only numb-nuts to have done this.
Back to the tran for another 100 laps. Then 10 light strops on Crox followed by 20 on canvas.
Stropped on leather and she shaved amazing this morning!!


And a pic for reading!
Paul

I got a giggle out of that. I've tapped the edge with my loupe a couple of times. Fortunately mine is soft plastic so it hasn't dinged the edge - yet. There's always that panic moment though.

Even better, was honing a wapienica and a Butler. Finished the Butler second, beautiful finish under loupe, set it down and TINK stainless steel wapienica scales put one HECK of a nick in that blade. Another two hours work and slightly smaller razor afterwards.

Oh yes. So many ways to screw up an edge and only one way to make it right again.

Beautiful stones too! Nothing like those Arkansas stones IMO.

Paul, nice work and technique using the ink to check the bevel contact.

Here is what I do with my loupes, just a small piece of craft foam and couple drops of glue. If you are using a round loupe, a small doughnut is all you need, or a 60X lighted loupe focuses far enough away from the edge, they sell for as little as $2.

Here is a post in the “Show us how you modified your tool thread in the Workshop thread, post 78”. A great thread by the way…

That's very similar to one of the 2 loupe I have, and the one I use most. I like that foam idea, might borrow it