Thread: too sharp

Een raad dat ik geef aan beginners is: als het wordt slechter de volgende keer, doe maar een dubbel antaal passes op jouw leder paddle.
More passes on leather. Make a video of your stropping technique and analyse it. Maybe something goes wrong.

I think it is either your stropping or the razor lost its ability to hold an edge. Also once the bevel is set you shouldn't have to set it again. When I touch up razor I just go to my finishing natural with slurry. How easy it is to touch up razor depends on natural stone, but just doing some laps on 8k should be enough of touch up

Originally Posted by Christian1

I think it is either your stropping or the razor lost its ability to hold an edge. Also once the bevel is set you shouldn't have to set it again. When I touch up razor I just go to my finishing natural with slurry. How easy it is to touch up razor depends on natural stone, but just doing some laps on 8k should be enough of touch up

Indeed, low price straights coming from India, Pakistan or China do not hold their sharpness due to poor quality steel used to made them.
What is the brand name of yours.

I have only good quality razors. Honed by good honers. And I can get a good 8k edge myself as wel.
Maybe I continue too long and indeed get a fin. I will experiment on this. Thx.

In order for a razor to be extremely sharp/keen, the apex of the razor has to be very thin. The problem is that a thin edge can become too weak to maintain its structural integrity. If that happens, microscopic chips will break out of the edge and the edge will feel rough/harsh.

The goal when forging steel is to produce a steel with small grain size so that it will be less likely to chip. The goal when honing is to make the edge as thin (keen) as possible without developing chips. Depending upon the alloy composition, hardness, and grain size of the steel, different razors respond differently to various hones and honing techniques.

thanks
main thing is now that I can go back to 8k without doing anything special
and when that shaves nice I go further trying my finishers :-)

Originally Posted by HiFuMi

but that is what I do
first make it good on 8k
but after that I go for example to Coticule or Welsh Slate , get a perfect and nice shave one or two times and than it gets much worse

If you are getting excellent shaves once or twice and then the edge degrades, you probably need better stropping technique. You may be rolling your edge with too much pressure. There are excellent tutorials in the library section of the site. Keep the spine on the strop and have a light touch while stropping.

Originally Posted by bluesman7

This ^ is good advice.

I suspect that you are producing a fin with your higher grit finishers that subsequently breaks down. This is easy to do with slow naturals or by using too much pressure with synthetic finishers.

one last thing
when I might indeed produce a fin on the edge
what is the best way to get rid of it then ??

IME fins or burrs tend to break or tear off regardless of how they're removed requiring going down to 8k or so anyway. A light bread knife, on a stone, piece of wood, or fingernail is probably as good a way as any to remove them. I don't have a lot of experience with them as you are farther ahead not making them in the first place

Originally Posted by HiFuMi

one last thing
when I might indeed produce a fin on the edge
what is the best way to get rid of it then ??

You can usually hone them off with very light pressure, short strokes, and flipping the blade each stroke. It may be difficult to do with a particular razor and stone combination.

Fins/unstable edges are usually caused by too much pressure especially on aggressive stones and/or too much time on one side of the blade.

One nice thing about naturals that slurry, like jnats, is that the slurry is very effective at removing unstable fins, etc, the slurry just wears them off.

Cheers, Steve