Thread: Honing trouble (false positives?)

First post photos of your razor, both sides to make sure there are no obvious issues with the razor.

So, you have no middle stone? 1k to 20k and possibly a 6-8k natural?
Forget the natural for now and use a synthetic progression. You need something in the 3/4k grit to remove the bevel setting stria and 8-12k range to polish the bevel and straighten the edge.

Chinese natural finishers are hit and miss.

When learning to hone, more magnification will make learning easier, teach you about what you see, and what the causes are. A 60-100X loupe is $10.

Most likely you have created a bur with the 1k and the stones you have are too fine to remove and refine the 1k stria.

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Good basic advice in this thread.

Get a loupe, 3/6k or 4/8 k. You should be able to shave very nicely with an 8k edge.
Ignore the high grit stones until you get the basics done.

It definitely sounds like you are missing the middle part of the progression. You certainly can set a bevel on a 1k and then use slurry on a hard stone to get the rest of the way there (coticule and jnat being two popular routes), but I would say that requires more skill/experience to do well than using a progression of synthetics. I also 100% agree with Randy's suggestion of shaving off the 8k. It should be a very nice shave if the blade is honed properly.

Also, while all hair based tests have to be calibrated based on your hair and how you handle the razor, popping arm hair is, for me, a test off the 1k to make sure the bevel is set. The difference in skin sensitivity from arm to face is like night and day.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Hmm, HHT is passing pretty consistently now. Here's what I'll do. I'm expecting some new blades for my lather catcher razor to arrive today. I'll start with the Heljestrand, and if it sucks I'll finish with the lather catcher.

Success! Shaved my whole face It was actually quite comfortable. That's a first, given that I have only been able to do some touch-ups before. And this one was very blunt when I got it; no edge to speak of at all.
I think that one conclusion I have (based on the way I do things) is that the arm hair test is very unreliable compared to the HHT. Looks like that's what has been misleading me a number of times. It might be different for others of course.

By the way, here is the razor. It is one of the thinnest, lightest, and most hollow-ground that I have. This may have made the honing a bit easier (I noticed that it changed quickly even on the Chinese stone)

That’s a great looking razor. Glad to hear you were able to get it shaving.

Originally Posted by trondsi

Hello folks! Disclaimer; I have shaved with straight razors for 15 years, and I am pretty picky.

I just got my first Swedish razor; a Heljestrand, and I was about to ask gssixgun to hone it, but then I though I should give honing one more try. I have tried others a number of times but in general I seem to be honing impaired Perhaps one issue is that I don't think I have a "consistent" set of stones (some blue Japanese 1000 grit, a Suehiro 20 000, and a natural very fine Chinese water stone). This razor seems to be getting sharp quicker than some others I have tried though.

One confusing thing is that I sometimes seem to get "false positives"; razors that pop arm hairs in mid air but don't shave that well. The HHT is currently so-so, it sometimes cuts, which I suspect is not good enough for my taste (?) Before I used to go "I'm sure it's good enough" when it seemed to pass the arm hair test, but I have learned that this is simply not the case. Should I just keep going? Another issue is fear of wearing out the razor, and patience I suppose Any advice is welcome!

I have seen this before. Often I have idly tested an edge right off a 1k Naniwa and it would treetop, then hit 9u film or 3k Naniwa and it doesn't any more and still doesn't until I hit the 12k Nanny or the 1u lapping film. It is the toothy characteristic of the unpolished but otherwise correct bevel that will do that sometimes. But you are going from 1k to 20k, so you are not really improving the bevel much, just sort of polishing the teeth a little. I could see that giving you treetopping ability, yeah. So no big mystery there.

Your blue Japanese synthetic... what size? It could be a Naniwa Superstone, a nice bevel setter. But you don't seem to have any midrange synthetics there. You can't expect much, jumping from 1k to 20k. Normally you would follow the 1k Naniwa (assuming that is what it is) with 3k, 8k, and 12k. The 20k would be more of a post-finish stone and maybe a refresh stone. Okay, so filling the gap with quality synthetics would be a little expensive. You could go a lot cheaper, especially if you only have a few razors to hone, with lapping film. From the 1k stone, go 9u/3u/1u film. The final 1u film is roughly equivelant to 13k or 14k. Jumping from that to the 20k is not too bad of a jump. Or you can just stop with the 1u film. Or follow the 1u film with a lapped and diamond-pasted balsa progression like I do.

Normally I would say continue to work with what you got, rather than waste all the time you have spent trying to learn those stones. But you don't really have a progression there, and filling that big gap will not be cheap. Your Chinese stone is likely a "PHIG", or "People's Hone of Indeterminate Grit", also known as a Cnat, Chinese Natural. These are essentially around 10k to 12k in terms of the finish they leave on an edge. The are usually pretty slow stones. When we first started seeing them, they gained a quick following as cheap finishers for following a coticule. Then quality went down and it became hit or miss, getting a good one. Now they are yesterday's news, though of course since they are hard and slow, the good ones will last for many years to come and are still in use.

I wouldn't worry TOO much about wearing out the razor honing on the Cnat or the 20k synthetic. However if you are pretty sure you got a good bevel set, I would NOT revisit the 1k again because you could add significant wear for no good reason. But don't have a cow, as Bart would say. It is pretty common for beginning honers to rub a razor into a toothpick. Hopefully you are not honing on something that is irreplaceable and priceless.

Get yourself a good loupe. The high end Bausch & Lomb ones are very good, but for a lot cheaper you can get a 10x Belomo Triplex which is about as good. You also need a very bright light. Examine the edge under the light with the loupe, and teach yourself to read the reflection off bevel, broken edge, Incomplete bevel, wire or fin edge, etc. Study the scratch patterns. Learn how to diagnose your edges using these two simple but very revealing tools. Now I said don't go back to the 1k stone, but yeah, go back to the 1k stone. Paint the bevel with a sharpie marker and give it just 3 or 4 light pressure laps. Now look at where the sharpie ink remains or is removed. This tells you where the steel is making contact with the hone and where it doesn't. Study the scratches left by the 1k. These must be removed by the next stage of honing, with the next hone replacing all those coarse scratches with its own finer scratches. You can change the heel leading angle a bit so that you can more easily tell the scratch patterns apart from their angles. Now maybe after thousands of laps, your 20k stone or your Cnat will get the job done, I don't know. I think you really, really need something in the middle there.

Originally Posted by trondsi

Success! Shaved my whole face It was actually quite comfortable. That's a first, given that I have only been able to do some touch-ups before. And this one was very blunt when I got it; no edge to speak of at all.
I think that one conclusion I have (based on the way I do things) is that the arm hair test is very unreliable compared to the HHT. Looks like that's what has been misleading me a number of times. It might be different for others of course.

By the way, here is the razor. It is one of the thinnest, lightest, and most hollow-ground that I have. This may have made the honing a bit easier (I noticed that it changed quickly even on the Chinese stone)

Oh, well good, then. Looks like a very thin and fine bevel, small contact area. That makes for much easier honing than otherwise. Swedish steel is usually pretty hard stuff. That is a very nice razor you got there, BTW.

You still ought to get some midrange media if you will be honing any other razors from scratch. Your Cnat or your 20k will work okay for touching up the edge when it gets a bit dull. No need to go any coarser for simple maintenance.

Agreed... when I added a 5K to my synth progression, it was a game changer for me.

So, Glen has sharpened most of my other razors. What should I sharpen next? Hmmmm this old single edge blade is dull.....