Thread: Hone advice once again

Well my dilemma is strange, I can hone a 1/4 hollow and wedges to a perfect edge no pulling or irritation but when it comes to full hollows i can never get it right.
My honing equipment is
Norton 4/8k
Chinese 12k
various pastes
I usually do pyramids or from low to high grit nothing out of the ordinary using the thumb pad test as i go i just cant get it right

Originally Posted by ucliker

Well my dilemma is strange, I can hone a 1/4 hollow and wedges to a perfect edge no pulling or irritation but when it comes to full hollows i can never get it right.
My honing equipment is
Norton 4/8k
Chinese 12k
various pastes
I usually do pyramids or from low to high grit nothing out of the ordinary using the thumb pad test as i go i just cant get it right

My first thought is too much pressure!

Wedges don't flex, full hollows do!

i never use any pressure thats whats strange

All else equal, a full hollow should be less work to hone than a wedge or a 1/4 hollow because you have to remove less metal. All is almost never equal though with straight razors. That is what makes them fun and sometimes a little frusterating. If you are getting uneven sharpness the two things that quickly come to my mind are a slightly warped blade or uneven pressure. You might want to do the magic marker test to make sure that the entire blade is contacting the hone. Mark the entire edge with a magic marker (or perminant marker) and see if it is comming off evenly when you hone. If any part is still black (or whatever color your marker is) then this means that this area is not contacting the hone evenly; and you might have to use some more advanced honing techniques to get the entire blade sharp.

i did the maker test, lapped my stones. I can get them sharp but not as sharp as the 1/4's or wedges its weird. I mean they shave but not as smooth a little pulling

[quote=ucliker;137085]i did the maker test, lapped my stones. I can get them sharp but not as sharp as the 1/4's or wedges its weird. I mean they shave but not as smooth a little pulling[/quote]
You can get by with sub par technique while shaving with a wedge that you could never get away with on a full hollow! It could be a sharpening issue, but I'd make sure my shaving technique was spot on first!
Also most wedges are of a softer steel than the full hollows! you might want to take this into consideration.

Well i re-lapped my chinese 12k and it helped a lot! Much smoother just test shaved it so thanks everyone. the other 2 full hollows do in fact have a very slight warp but its no big deal i will finish them up tomorrow. thanks again guys.

Have you tried a professionally honed full-hollow. Sharp 1/4 hollows and full hollows simply feel different to shave with than sharp full hollows. I preffer the stiffer grinds myself, which is part of the reason that I am selling so many razors these days.

Yeah i have a Lynn honed and owned Kinfolks Blue Steel special, Thats not the razor with the problems though. But i think i fixed the problem when i re-lapped my stones.