Thread: Honing a Gold Dollar is hard!

One person’s opinion does not make a controversial topic.

Howard is a very experience honer with tons of experience and credibility, I think what he was referring to, is stropping after putting an edge on with a GS20, especially with new stroppers, that have not yet mastered stropping.

But, are you honing on a GS20?

And why are you stropping on Chrome Oxide, if stropping dulls the edge?

Yes, for hundreds of years, folks have maintained an edge stropping on Chrome Oxide…

Originally Posted by almond

>> what I considered a good edge 3 years ago I would not even have in my rotation.

typically I would have accepted his, had I not lurked across other threads in this forum. And not followed howard schechter on youtube, when he says the edge is as sharp as can be straight from the hone. But once it is stropped, the sharpness gets dulled,

now on this very forum the DE subforum has people complaining how the brand new feather is very harsh on their skin. They say that it takes a few shaves to soften up a bit and then gives a great shave. Doesn't that mean people really do not require a wicked edge, they need an edge that is comfortable on their skin.

my obsession with the gold monkey is because it is like an errant child, and demands more of my attention. I am obsessed with it because it often misbehaves and I feel, rightly or wrongly, that I can set it right. the incoming USB microscope will tell me how much close I am to a great edge.

Originally Posted by almond

stropping is a controversial topic, a strop after shave can realign the edge. That is true from personal experience.

what schechter said is that stropping upto 10 times retains the sharp edge, but stropping way above that or even the 11th time on a strop can curve the edge slightly. He observed this on a high powered electron microscope which most people do not have access to. Why should I not believe him.

we strop so that the edge is comfortable sharp and not scary sharp that irritates the skin. We strop on palms so that edge loses some of it's scary sharpness and behaves more humane. the human palm is not exactly a plain surface, it is very contoured leather even if we hold it as straight as we can.

There's nothing controversial about stroping. See here:

https://scienceofsharp.wordpress.com...-stropping-do/

This shows you not only what precisely stropping does, but also why your feather blades start out a little prickly and uncomfortable. Note the pictures at the bottom that show the coating that wears off in a shave or 2.

There's also some good information here:

https://scienceofsharp.wordpress.com...d-keen-part-2/

I hope it is not just me thinking like this but I don't understand how stropping seems to get so hard for some people. If you can push the salt & pepper shaker out of the way to set your plate down on the kitchen table or pull the salt & pepper toward your plate at the kitchen table to spice your food, why can't people strop a razor ?

The pictures that are magnified I could not determine what they were with out reading about it . I thought the first was some kind of dermal layer of skin and the second was a pound or two of clay in an art class. They are to magnified to help me unless I was looking to see how the carbon atoms bind together to make up the steel I honestly couldn't tell what was coating and what was steel.

The bottom 2 pictures on the stropping page, the darker areas toward the top and inside the stria are the coating they put on a DE razor's edge.

Originally Posted by Grazor

Don't know how you got BBS with so many obvious problems going on, but well done.
The more you learn, the more you will learn to use the entire length of the razor. The heel is a part of the razor that you have good control of because it is closest to your hand, so it helps if it is as sharp as the rest of the edge. Good for trimming up those difficult spots after your first pass.
Release that monkey back into the wilderness where it belongs, get yourself a tidy vintage razor and learn to hone on that. The difference will be night and day. A pro honed razor is a good comparison to know where you are at with your own abilities.
A strop doesn't blunt your razor, it maintains your razor. It takes time to master, but once you do, expect to get 50+ shaves before it needs a touch up. Have a Bengall and a Puma with over 80 shaves on each of them...

with reference to your complaints, today I blunted the edge, (breadknifed it). set a new bevel by rehoning on a 240.
progressed to an 800. and then I do not have a 3k, 5k stone so progressed to a 6k stone. then honed on a 12k.

managed to get a brand new edge. It pops hair near the heel. HHT3 near heel perhaps with HHT5 near the toe.

It shaves without foam as well. Just spray some water on the face.

on the carborundum hone I had to raise a thick slurry, using some linseed oil to make this monkey behave. I didn't get an aggressive edge just spraying some WD40 on the stone, I thought I would try with just WD40 on the stone at first. It didn't work.
I

No complaints here, just trying to help you, like everyone else who has spent the time replying to this thread.
After bread knifing the edge, you shouldn't have to go as drastic as 240 grit. The 800 should easily re-set the bevel.
A light bread knifing does help get rid of the micro chipping.
Now that you have the monkey shaving well, try 5 shaves using nothing but a strop, no crox, no hones. You should find the 3rd or 4th shave more comfortable than the 1st. That will help you discover the value of a strop.
If you get to 5 keep going, if you get to 10 keep going, if you get to 50 I am sending you my gold monkey to hone for me, as long as it doesn't end up 4/8...

Why is the toe keener than the heel?

You can get an edge on a razor with tools you have, if you do enough laps. As said skip the 240 stone, your just wasting steel and making more work for yourself.

Just re-set on the 12 and 6K and find out what the problem is with the heel.

Do you have a real synthetic 12k or an EBay natural stone?

12k is synthetic. One more 12K I have is a natural jade, it is 10k or 12k, but not really sure. I do not hone it in conventional way, but use it as Edge pro apex style stone on razor rather than razor on stone because it is so small.

“I do not hone it in conventional way, but use it as Edge pro apex style stone on razor rather than razor on stone because it is so small.”

Well… there’s your problem…

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