Thread: new guy to honing please help

Im new to honing straight razors, I have a razor that had a chip that i removed using sandpaper. I'm trying to hone it on a 1k 3k 8k 12k nainwa super stones. I'm currently using circle and small x strokes. When i get to the 3k stone i can pop hairs off my arm easily with the toe and heel of the blade. I can't cut hair against the skin with the middle of the blade. What am I doing wrong? Do i need to do a different stroke to target the middle of the blade? Thanks for any help in advance. It a full or near full hollow utica blade.

What's a "small" x stroke. Rolling x strokes should contact the entire blade. Pics would help, the sandpaper could have caused problems.

Watch the videos.
Tape the spine to avoid excess wear. Set the bevel and run thru your progression of stones. Equal light even pressure on both sides.
Good luck.

What i mean by small x stokes is a start at the heel and maybe drop about 1/8 of and inch by the time i get to the end of the hone. thought maybe it would help if the stone wasnt completly flat. Maybe some thing i shouldnt do. I did lap the stones. thanks prodigy I might try some rollings x like in the videos.

Ok i have watched the videos. I havnt taped the spline, i will to avoid spline damage. thanks bouschie.

Did you check for a frown? Ive had an issue like this without a frown, which was helped with 45 degree, heel leading strokes. There's better descriptions/videos of this technique. Pictures are helpful for us in diagnosing the issue

I worked my way up then back down. Then back up stone progression with swooping or rolling Xs. The blade is now extremely sharp. the blade now has a spot near the heel that I wore away more then the rest of the edge. I may have ruined the blade i will try to get a picture tomorrow. The blade was in rough shape to begin with. I just hope i can learn from this one. I spent a lot of time honing it. Is it normal to take longer then an hour to hone a blade? And how do you know when the bevel is set? Thanks again i will try to get a picture so you can see the edge.

Shaved with razor this morning. I tried posting a picture of the razorS edge but will not work from my phone will have to transfer over the picture to my pc first. Is there an app for this forum so things work on cell phones?? Thanks

Originally Posted by DennisMenace

Shaved with razor this morning. I tried posting a picture of the razorS edge but will not work from my phone will have to transfer over the picture to my pc first. Is there an app for this forum so things work on cell phones?? Thanks

Taptalk on android. I don't know about iPhone.

Originally Posted by crazy4str8tsinnc

Taptalk on android. I don't know about iPhone.

There is Tapatalk on IOS too.

After seeing all the restores on this forum, unless you some how heated the razor in the honing process to ruin the temp or used it to open a paint can, it's probably fine.

I wouldn't worry about the time it takes to hone a razor. All razors are different and some will take a long time to hone, simply because they're difficult.

For bevels, check videos made by Lynn and gssixgun. They have good descriptions on how to get a good bevel, that's the most important.

To get pictures off of a phone, I use a cloud app. Google offers a free one and I think microsoft offers their's for free as well. With limited storage, of course.