Thread: 1k 4k 8k

Hi all, A while ago I read about a challenge to set a bevel, and then hone with only the 4k/8K stones.

This afternoon I decided to get an old razor out of my todo drawer and give it some love.

I am not even the worlds worst bevel setter, I will need to improve a lot to even get close to the worlds worst but i did it anyway on 1K and it turned out ok but I'm not gonna show ya LOL.

Anyway, I used the 4K Norton and then the 8K. Not happy I went to 4K and then 8K again.

I decided that I should get good at honing with 8K before I go to 12K (except to refresh).

I just shaved with the razor I set the bevel on and honed up to 8K.

I am not going to pretend that it was the best shave I have ever had but I shaved, it was close but not bbs and was pretty comfortable. I lathered up with my Southern Witchcraft because I felt I needed all the help I could get

Maybe if I get my 12K out tomorrow I might be able to add it to my rotation. If learned anything.

Either learn to set a bevel or learn to press harder when I shave

The biggest leap for me was getting the bevel set. It is probably the easiest to mess up and most overlooked. A piece of advice that helped me in the beginning was hone just on one side until there is a burr you can feel with your fingernail the whole way down the bevel. Then flip it over till you get the same. Then alternate to even it out. Usually I'll do at least 20 both sides. Doing it this way helped me to learn how to get the bevel even down the whole length and how to concentrate on the areas that are slower to set. I also learned that the slower to set part is not always or even usually the same on both sides. You'll find, or at least I did, that I spent less time on the mid range stones after getting the hang of bevel set.

The bevel set is everything. It's like "Do not pass go" in Monopoly. And it is a very useful exercise while learning the fundamentals of honing to see if you can shave off of a 1k bevel set (which you should be able to do, albeit maybe not very comfortably), then your 4k, your 8k like you're doing.

The 8k or its equivalent is your other gateway stone. Unless you can get a good shave off of it consistently (which was considered finished by many on here when I first started), you're wasting time on any other "finisher." Nail that, and the sky is the limit-have fun on your honing journey!

Yeah, I meant to mention the shave test on bevel set. Thanks Aaron. What some people suggest is shave on each stone. Maybe that is a good learning exercise but it seems to me that once you master the bevel set then the mid range is down hill. Now finishing is another beast to be conquered but the range should be coasting. At least that was my experience. I guess I can't speak for anyone else. I think the biggest hurdle with the mid grit stones for me was correct stroke motion. Through the last half of the 4k and all of the 8k I stroke like I'm doing it in slow motion and decrease pressure till it's almost imaginary strokes at the end. Although I actually do that at the end of bevel set also.

Sorry, didn't mean to monologue. Just sharing

Okay, I'm probably all alone on this, but here is my experience. When I started out (making razors), all I had was the standard (or dreaded) Norton 4K/8K and a DMT 325 for flattening the Norton. Plus I used a strop after the hones. I set the bevel on the DMT 325 since I didn't have a 1k hone. Then I honed on the Norton. To be honest I couldn't comfortably shave arm hair even off of the 8k until I had stropped it. The stopping was done on linen with green chrome paste and then plain leather. The finished product gave me an acceptable shave. I used this for about 5 years.

After that I added a 1K DMT to go between the DMT 325 and the 4K Norton. This greatly cut down on my honing time on a new razor, but didn't necessarily give me a better finished product.

Then I added a 12K Shapton and now we were cooking with oil!. I could actually shave arm hair (comfortably) directly off of the stone from the 12K. Stropping after the 12K gave a great shave.

I know a lot of guys don't like the Norton 4k/8k stones, but they do work. The (325) > 1k > 4k > 8k > 12k > Linen/chrome > leather progression does seem to work well and is fairly fool proof. If I was to give a fiend a razor, I would simply include a linen/leather strop with chrome paste. If I felt that they were competent with a hone, then I would have them get a 12k Shapton to go with the strop. That's it. This should last them years if not decades. If they were buying razors off of ebay or at flea markets then I would have them get the two DMT hones as well as the Norton 4k/8k. It's tried and proven. There may be a better option than the Norton (perhaps some Shapton hones?) that would save you from having to get the 325 DMT. However, it really doesn't take long to go from absolutely zero bevel (as in a new razor that has never had a bevel set) to shaving bliss with this set up.

A A Ron said everything I had to say, and then Paul chipped in some extra thought.
If you can master the 1K bevel set, it’s all gravy from there.
I know I post this thread often, but honestly it’s the best reference picture for A bevel set that I know of.
https://sharprazorpalace.com/honing/...ggestions.html
Once I learned the loupe and how to see the bevel being properly set, my edges have been consistent and shave very well.

At some point when all the sexy new Naniwas and Shaptons came on the market, the Norton 4/8k combo hone became your Dad's old Town and Country van of hones, and definitely no longer had a seat at the cool kids' table. They also apparently had some qc issues out of their factory in Mexico, so they fell out of favor to some degree.

That said, along with the Chosera 1k, the same boring old Norton 4/8k I started with is still the foundation of my honing progression, and provides a pretty good shave in its own right given good stropping. Then the Naniwa 12k, and I'm always playing around with different naturals. Point is, I "get there" with the old reliable Norton 4/8.

Once the bevel is set it’s just polishing from there,

I have Norton 220/1K 4K/8K and a Naniwa 12k SS. Not a huge selection of different stone like a lot of you seem to have but apart from the cost I am 100% sure that owning every stone ever made will not help me 1 bit until I get the dagbern bevel right.

I'm going to start again from scratch, probably today.

I have watched loads of videos, gxgun, Job15, a chap called big nose shaver, and a guy called italian stallion. Anyway my takeaway is that although the bevel set techniques are a just a little different in all videos I saw and that there is more than 1 way to skin a cat. The techniques are all basically similar and they all make bevel setting look so simple and easy.

Well that is not my reality so I think that I am going to need to start again and bevel set either until it is done right or I don't have any razor left.

I do have a loupe but to be completely honest, I don't know what I'm looking at, obvously it's an edge but you know what I mean I'm sure.

I have marked the edge with a sharpie and have tried different strokes untill I got it all off. Circles seem to get it all off.

I have read on here about the limitations of a USB loupe/microscope but i have one that I have not used before. Maybe i should send some before bevel set, during and after pics with it?

I would love to try and shave with just a good bevel bfore I moved on, it sounds like a great way to perfect each stone before the next but at the moment, just shaving arm hair has made me sore from repeat quite firm stroking to get some hair on the blade.

Exciting when i see some arm hair shave though even if do press hard enough to hurt.

Question, if I have tried different strokes to see if I can remove the sharpie before I try anything too clever as Job15 explained in his video (unless i completely missed the point) and discover that circles seem to be the way to get the pen off the length of the blade. Do I do those same circles that are working throughout the whole progression to the exclusion of all else.

It occurs to me that if the way to get the pen off was circles and nothing else seemed to do the trick, anything but those circles won't hone the blade all the way along at any grit, am I missing something?

Anyway, would pics be worth sending, I could do a video but I'm not sure if it would help much - or maybe it would. I got excellent advice from the shaving videos i uploaded and I really improved quickly because of it.