Thread: Stainless razor giving me trouble

Originally Posted by Sdm84

Ok that's why I'm here. I picked that up from a member of another forum's videos.

So- when setting the bevel count strokes? Do x strokes flipping on spine till the bevel shaves arm hair?

Please elaborate

I won't know what success looks like unless I work through my failures!

I would not bother counting strokes. You have to keep honing till you have the bevel fully set. It might take a hundred strokes and it might take five hundred. The sharp edge is all that matters.

You can do x strokes, or chisel strokes, or circles or any combination as long as you finish with x strokes. If you are new to this you really should use tape so that you do not mess up the spine. If you use tape you will need to change it regularly when it wears and be aware that as the tape thins the honing angle changes with the result being that the edge lifts off of the hone. Fresh tape brings the edge back into contact.

This is a horrid video I did a while ago. It was a demonstration of setting the bevel on a razor using a FINISHING hone. This came about from a thread here and it certainly is not the normal or recommended way to set a bevel but it will give you some sense of the strokes involved when I set bevels. By all means don't watch the whole thing unless you are an insomniac but you can skip around and get a sense of how long it can take to set a bevel. In it I keep saying that it's almost there and then it's not. Delusion and optimism are helpful when honing but you can't actually move on from the bevel set until you have it right.