Serrated edges, or the value of using a loupe
Since I'm new to honing, I thought I'd throw out my beginner observations here for you more experienced gentlemen to comment on. It's long, but that's because I'm used to writing long accounts. :rolleyes: Can't write short and concise accounts. Occupational hazard, I think...
First off, as some of you may know I purchased a handful of straight razor blades off eBay earlier this year, with the intention of putting scales on them, getting them to where they shave again and thus rescuing them from the scrap heap. One of the blades had some nicks in the edge, the largest one being about a millimeter deep, and even though I had a hone of unknown quality purchased at a dollar store a couple of years ago, I knew this was way too coarse to use for a straight razor. So I knew I would need to buy some more appropriate hone(s).
Second, I used a couple of home-made paddle strops to bring the edge of my first new straight to where it would shave me without pulling, so I had some confidence that this would be one way of getting the blades "shave ready". The first blade I re-handled was sharpened using those paddle strops.
Anyhow, in order to restore the chipped razor to working condition, I purchased the beginner set of hones from Tilly (a.k.a. Redtrader99) from her website, consisting of one Cushion Strop (coarse), one Gem hone (medium) and one Frictionite #24 (fine). When I received the hones I lapped them on the fine side of the dollar store hone, and then started working on the edge of the chipped razor, on the coarsest of the barber hones.
I used the circular motion recommended by Lynn in his DVD, and checked frequently to see whether the nicks were coming out. After approximately a thousand or so circles on each side, I couldn't see the largest nick anymore with my naked eye, so I proceeded to do a pyramid, starting with the coarsest hone in place of the 4000 grit side of the Norton, and the medium hone in place of the 8000 grit side of the Norton, and used the fine hone as a finishing stone. I was using water on all of the hones. Then I did about ten laps on the chrome oxide pasted paddle strop.
To finish off, I did about 35 laps on my leather strop and tried shaving with the razor. It shaved, but it didn't shave well.
Back to the finest hone, and then another go on the chrome oxide and leather strop. Still no good.
So, today I decided to take out the 10x loupe I had in a drawer, and examined the edges of my straight razors. When I looked at the edge of the razor I had honed, I was surprised to see lots of serrations. The other edges were more or less completely smooth. :hmmm:
So, I decided to work some more on the edge of that razor. I used the finest hone, primarily, and this time I didn't use any water, and a really, really light touch. That seemed to work, at first, since the serrations were disappearing more and more. Then they started returning!
So I decided to finish the edge on the pasted paddle strops instead. Used the coarser paste first and examined the edge through the loupe. Still serrations. Then the chrome oxide. Examined the edge again. Better, but still some serrations. Decided to strop the razor on the leather strop. Did 60 laps. Examined the edge again. Success! Only about three microscopic "nicks"! So it would seem the stropping really helps in smoothing the edge out.
Does this seem consistent with what the rest of you have experienced, or am I just inept at using the hones and need to work more on my technique? :shrug:
/Nicholas