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Adventures in Magnification / Honing Feedback / What's Wrong with the 12K?
My wife purchased a USB microscope for our 6 year old. He has expressed no interest. His dad however has taken it over. Not exactly what link she followed, but she said it was $30 on Amazon, and while it is a little crude, I must saw overall I'm impressed. I took the opportunity to examine some razors, including a F. Beckhar Solingen import I purchased off E-Bay sometime back. It's a 13/16 full hollow, shaves incredibly well when on point but I've found the edge degrades rather quickly. It's a solid performer for maybe a half dozen shaves then starts tugging prematurely.
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The last honing session on it was using a Kiita self slurry. Initial photos are kind of blurry... when I took a look I didn't like the fine edge alignment, it looked a little "wavy" to me with some microchips. I'd estimate these are roughly 100x magnification.
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I took it to my Shapton 5K. Initially I was shocked to see the edge abrade away in some areas (I didn't take photos). I kept at the 5K for awhile until the microchips were worked out. I started upping the magnification during these photos, they start at 100x and I'm probably 150x by the final one. Note: I do not typically strop between levels, all of these are cleaning the blade between without stropping (until the final set).
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Next I went to my S8000 Superstone. One of my favorite stones, it cuts quickly and polishes well. Only downside is it's a little soft, which makes it unsuitable for kitchen knives but it works a treat for razors.
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Then I finished on my 12K Superstone. I have never liked this particular stone. Both it and my 8K superstone are "shrimp mark" stones, although the 8K is a Japanese domestic market stone attached to the stand. The 12K is a bare white stone and an export market version. My dissatisfaction with the 12K is what led me to start down the JNat rabbithole. I haven't used it in a long time. When I started honing on it for this sesion, it felt "scratchy". I worked it some with an Atoma 1200# and the scratchy feeling went away (mostly).
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To me it looks like stria is returning at the 12K level, and the very edge is starting to roughen out...
I gave it a good stropping next, 40 laps on linen and 50 on leather.
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Shave this morning was pretty good. I'd rate it a solid B+. Not a laser edge, but gave a very good two pass shave with no weepers. Maybe a little tugging at the heel when going ATG near the upper lip.
Looking for thoughts, feedback from anyone out there. I may try going back to the 8K, and stropping and shaving off of that to see if there's a difference between it and the 12K.