Thread: Assistance requested please

So I think I've made some very good progress. I got a diamond hone from Harbor Freight. Used the 300 grit diamond hone to create a slurry and level my Norton 4/8 and King 1K. The slurry seems to make a huge difference. Bevel setting time is significantly reduced. Scratch marks don't seem to be as prevalent. Overall process is much quicker with a slurry. This was especially noticeable on the 4K and 8K.

On the 4K with slurry, the scratch pattern became much more dull, with even scratches across the bevel. On the 8K with slurry, the bevel is now mirror-like, with fewer noticeable or prevalent scratches from he 4K. I finished on the 8K with no slurry, light strokes. Stropped on leather only. HHT and the hairs are simply falling away with little to no coaxing. A big improvement I think. Of course, the shave will ultimately tell, but I see this as improvement. Perhaps next I'll try and land a Nagura stone for even better results...?

I've now re-honed 4 of my razors using slurry. A Packwood hollow grind, a W&B smiling wedge, a Greaves hollow grind, and a Bengal. Going to shave today and see if the difference is noticeable.

My 1k King REALLY speeds up with slurry

I don't know if a nagura stone will help much on top of synthetics. Remember, those are typically used atop really, really hard naturals. If you want better results, my recommendation is get a 1000 grit diamond plate so you leave shallower grooves in the stone, at least for your 4 and 8k stones. And maybe don't bother with slurry at all on the 8K. Once I'm done with my 4K stone it really doesn't take a lot to polish the edge on the 8k. Slurry will only slow that step down. It seriously took fewer than 10 strokes the last time I honed a blade on my Norton 8k.

One thing hasn't been mentioned. I think on Synthetic stones, lets say Naniwa Superstones, they behave better when the surface of the stone is disrupted, ie; Giving the hone, a few rounds of the lapping plate, leaving even a tiny bit of slurry, razors seem to come around quicker, takes away any metal in the surface of the stone, gives you clean stone for the razor you are honing. Checkout a video of Gssixgun, who does a similar thing. No scientific reason, for the method, but it does work.

Probably because it keeps the pores of the stone free of obstruction, and keeps the cutting material fully exposed. And of course the slurry doing what it does - cutting material faster.

They're similar to Naturals in that sense. The stones work faster with a clean, dwarf free surface that's been agitated with a sanding medium (sand paper, diamond hone, etc.)

Originally Posted by relli1130

Let's just say the feather professional blade is my benchmark for comfort.

Jeff, that statement alone will set you up for disappointment. It is near impossible to duplicate the factory edge on a Feather Pro blade by hand honing a traditional straight.

I too used to use a Feather DX and my favorite blade with that razor was the Pro Super ones... a bit stiffer and more durable edge, but not quite as sharp as the Pro.

The first thing I recommend is to put that Feather away, and the second is to stop trying to get your honed edges to compare to the Feather, as they just wont.

Now, having said that, I can honestly say that yesterday (Uh... I didn't shave today) I had what was probably the closest to a Feather edge/shave with a traditional straight, I have ever had. It was an old mistreated Boker that I managed to damage the scales on, tightening the pin a tad too much. Bekk (Danny) was kind enough to have a look at it and managed to not only save the scales with a very nice repair, but did a fantastic job on honing it. I decided to give that edge an extra honing session on my newest Jnat and wow, it was sharper than anything I've honed before. It's worth noting that I started from a fantastic edge in the first place and succeeded in tweaking it just a little bit more.

So, getting a sharp comfortable edge and shave is well within the realm of traditional straights, but it takes some time to develop the skills to make that happen and also you will need to adjust your shave technique to make up for the slightly less sharp edge than the Feather.

If I understand correctly, your finest hone is a 4K/8K Norton. It's a great hone and you should be able to create a good shaving edge with it, but there is room for a finishing hone after that. When I first started out, the Norton was THE hone to have... but when I added a Coticule, my shaves went way up in both sharpness and smoothness. Later I ended up with Shapton Glass hones up to 16K and again, it made another jump in sharpness, but less that before. In the past year, I have purchased a complete set of Naniwa hones and several natural finishers, including a couple of Jnats.

So.... from where you are now, I would suggest either a 16K Shapton Glass hone or a Naniwa 12K with the latter being the cheaper of the two. I would work on that finisher to try and get the edge as good as I could get with that hone. Chromium Oxide pasted paddle or bench strops could be added, but since figuring out my natural finishers, I find the bench strop is being ignored.

Gents, such as GSsixgun, who hone for $, can use a pasted hanging strop as they have honed and stropped so many razors that they have the technique down pat. For the average user (and I include myself in this group), pasted hanging strops can ruin an edge very quickly and so I would recommend against them.

I get my best edges from natural finish hones, such as my Jnats and Coticules, but they took time to figure out... the Naniwas and Shaptons do a great job, and everyone here who has one, can steer you in the right direction as all these man made hones are pretty much the same. That cannot be said for the natural hones... each one is an individual, and will most often only reward it's owner if treated right... and sometimes, you end up with a dud that just won't work at all... or perhaps you just didn't figure it out, ended up selling it, only to find someone else is beaming over getting such a great hone for such a low price! :-)

I would suggest a 12K Naniwa.... and after learning to wring every last bit of performance out of it... you can decide if you wish to try a natural hone or perhaps a Gok 20K or a Shapton 30K or..... I find I like to use either the Naniwa 12K or Shapton 16K first, and then hit a natural to smooth it out just a wee bit. It is also at this point that you can experiment with a Chromium Oxide pasted bench/paddle strop... to see if you like the results.

When you are only shaving one face, there's only so much you can learn in a year. It can take years before you get really good with your hones and razors so you can produce near Feather sharpness/smoothness. In the meantime, getting edges that you can get great, comfortable shaves from, is pretty easy, just don't try and compare them to a Feather edge.

I found I could not shave with my Feather for a long period of time. I had no problems with nicks or cuts, but my skin got so thin that my body fluids started to seep out.


EDIT: Oops, I missed the question about an English Bridal strop or..... As long as you have a half decent strop, there's no need for anything else. I had several starter strops that worked just as well as my current SRD English Bridal strop. I'll still sing the praises for my Illinoise 827, even if it did need a lot of work after I got it.... I hear the other Illinoise models are of rather sad quality, but I have no personal knowledge of such. Unless you're stropping on a terrible quality strop, run whatcha brung.

Regards

Christian

Kaptain Zero,
A, suggestion; Maybe your mate can, if he gets a reasonable shave from the Norton 8k, and, if it is his intention to ultimately own the Suehiro 20k. He may wish to save some money and forgo the bridging hone, and could simply go from the 8k to a 20k Gok. I have taken to doing it that way, and can report nice edges, typically 20k edges, and in a test using a 15k hone to bridge the gap, can't tell the difference. If money is an issue, he wouldn't be dissappointed with the Naniwa 12k edge, the edge difference is not enormous.
Bob

Something else you might want to consider is the surface of the 4k side. You mentioned scratches still being present after using the 8k side; it's possible these are left over from rogue particles in the 4k side. The Norton 4k stones are notorious for needing a lot of lapping and you may need to remove quite a lot of the surface to get to the smoothest abrasive material, i.e. the true 4000 grit stuff. I would suggest lapping off at least 1/32" or say, about a mm (just to mix the unit systems a bit )

Wow. Fantastic input everyone! Much appreciation for your thoughts and time in responding.

Typically, deep stria, often blamed on middle grit stone and finish stone is the fault of the bevel setter and/or low grit stones or diamond plates.

You really don’t notice the deep stria in the middle grits, because there is so much other stria and perhaps not enough light or magnification. But as the stria thins out in the higher grits, the deep stria becomes visible and the middle or finish stones are suspected.

The same thing occurs in hand sanding and buffing.

If you are using a King 1k with slurry, that may be your problem. While the King is a fine stone for the money, it does slurry easily. Slurry cuts more quickly on a synthetic stone, because it adds more loose grit. The loose grit of a synthetic, does not break down like many naturals and as a result the loose grit can and often does, cut deep.

So, if you do use slurry to set a bevel, polish the deep stria out on the 1k without slurry, once the bevel is set, (20-40 laps usually does it). Which by the way is the source of your problem. The bevel is not fully set, a hair test cannot conclusively tell you when a bevel is set, by itself.

Look at the edge and the stria on the bevel, if you see deep stria stay on the 1k without slurry, until it is removed and the stria pattern is uniform. Then move to the Transition stone, the 4k in your case and polish out all the 1K stria. The transition stone removes all the deep grinding stria from bevel setting and begins the polishing process that will straighten the edge.

It is the second most important stone, in the honing process, first you set a compete edge with the bevel setter, then polish the bevels to straighten the edge.

The edge is already sharp, if the bevel is fully set, Straightening the edge give you comfort and further sharpens the edge. But if the edge is not fully set and sharp, you end up with neither.

You should be able to get a very nice shaving edge from an 8k, linen a leather, with Chrome Oxide a smoking edge.

A better strop will not improve your stropping until, your stropping improves, which for most folks takes about a year of daily stropping.

Learning to strop properly is the key to maintaining a straight razor.