Thread: Honing a Gold Dollar is hard!

Yea, the general concensus is that 8k and up is shave ready territory. And how you get there is of less importance than the quality of the finisher. Might be worth looking into a King 1/6 and a Naniwa 3/8. No large gaps between phases and you've got your 8k edge.

Well, on the bright side finishers seem to be priced similarly on either side of the pond. Naniwa 10 and 12K are 77 and 88 USD. I think you guys can get Welsh Slates a little cheaper (international shipping hurts!) if Naturals are your thing, and the PHIG is priced the same. I probably don't want to know what an Arkansas stone runs you guys.

With a solid 1k I'm sure the GD will be easier to tame. Mine shaves ok, when the stars align and my honing experiments produce a useable edge

Well, what you will need, all depends on what is wrong with it. They generally have, thick and uneven in the spines, high stablizers, sharp heels that need reshaping, hard steel, warped, uneven grinds, improper bevel angles, and incompletely ground bevels.

Pretty much unfinished razors, but sometimes you get lucky. Oh, and flimsy badly pinned scales that make stropping difficult and may just pop the pins, when stropping.

So, it really depends on the razor what it needs. A dual grit diamond plate will make the correction/repair work go much quicker, followed by a good 1k stone to set the bevel.

I like the 400/1k, 8X3 inch, diamond plate from CKTG for $35, it will also lap your stones.

I must have spent a total of 8 hrs getting this blade right with the gear I've got available and got it shaving but then chipped the blade with my dremel so started again. It's hard work with a tiny stone but it gets there!

By the way, do I wet agate or leave it dry? Come pay day a new stone is in order!

From what I've read the best way to use agate is like an Arkansas hone. Polish it, burnish it, and use it with oil.

The dremel is probably best left out of the equation. Even when restoring a blade and polishing the sides of the metal dremels go from dangerous to destructive.

Slip with it going in the wrong direction and you'll have the edge heading towards your hand Or a chunk of blade missing.

Get the metal too hot and it'll mess up the heat treatment on the blade making it soft so it doesn't hold an edge.

Mess up the blade geometry with uneven grinding and it'll cost you time effort and perhaps the razor.


The best way is the slow way. Wet and dry paper, steel wool, polishing pastes/powders.

If you are desperate to do something with it then the most ghetto way to grind it out is to get something made of flat glass or granite. Then put the finest grade wet and dry paper you can buy on it and work slowly. You can use the same flat plate to lap your stones with the same wet and dry paper. I'm not going to lie it would be better picking up the king 1/6 and work with that.

Blade geometry isn't just how much metal was removed in the grind. It's also a relationship between the depth of the blade and the width of the spine. The deeper the blade is the wider the spine needs to be. If you mess with that too much you will end up with an edge that will refuse to hold a shaving edge as the edge will not have enough metal to hold it's shape. It can also go the other way if you remove blade depth and don't correct the spine you will get a chisel edge that won't shave. Likewise if you cook the blade then even if that geometry is correct the metal still won't hold an edge. It's why razors are all similar in size and shape, because that mathematical equation dictates how a razor has to be made. There is some leeway in the equation but an edge will always fall into a narrow angle window. 15-22 degrees.

I wouldn't worry about doing things on the cheap, I went that route at first. And in all honesty I failed and ended up going with doctrine. It's faster, safer, and you get the results you need. The cheap route doesn't have to be ghetto, With some cheap stones you can be working and as with any collection it grows.

My route went like this.

Wet and dry paper - failure.
silicone carbide coarse fine stone - failure.
King 1/6 results but not comfortable.
King 1/6 + natural finisher. Slow as hell but worked.

Naniwa 8 + king 1/6 instant results. Much better and faster than the natural finisher. If I had to I could live with this rotation. It gives a decent shave, not as smooth as with the higher stones, but not uncomfortable or slow either.

Naniwa 5, 12 Much better shave and much much faster work time.

Naniwa chosera 1K + 5, 8, 12 superstones. My standard synthetic rotation now. It's a grown collection and I still own and do not regret the king. IT took over a year before I had this rotation.

Then there are my naturals. I have a good collection of them now. Naturals are always a gamble. There is a lot to be said about the edge from some of them. Without a decent synthetic rotation to aid your development of skills it's a long path to take. My coticule for example can do everything from bevel set to final polish, but it's a pain in the arse to get it there. It's easier to let the synthetics get 90% of the work done then just do the final bit on that stone to get a final edge that has all the benefits of the natural without the effort.

Sorry ! I thought the thread said "Honing a Gold Dollar is hard" and I don't mean any offense but it sounds like your making a salad with a DR Wood Chipper here.

Originally Posted by AlienEdge

Sorry ! I thought the thread said "Honing a Gold Dollar is hard" and I don't mean any offense but it sounds like your making a salad with a DR Wood Chipper here.

Easy tiger! we all start somewhere. In a few months this guy is going to re-read this thread and realise that perhaps some of his ideas don't fall into standard operating procedure. Most of us have been there. Most of us needed information and tried ideas that we though would work and failed, then failed again and again.

If you live close to Coventry you are welcome to pop over ShaveUK. I'll physically show you my mistakes and I made a fair few. The gold dollar you have is the perfect test bed, Abuse it, use it, and learn with it. It's why I've not commented on what it is or even tried to dissuade you from abusing it. It's function is to get you where you need to be. Just don't chop off a finger catching the dremel badly!

Originally Posted by shaveuk

and got it shaving but then chipped the blade with my dremel so started again.

I hope I am reading this wrong !