Thread: Straight Razors Dull Despite Little Use

Originally Posted by rickytimothy

True, true. I tried shaving with your razor after some pasted strop action. It felt alien, to my skin it felt dull and sticky, but it was taking the hair clean off without a fight too. I've never experienced that before.

A highly polished bevel, even though we usually consider that to be a pretty good thing, can feel sticky sometimes. Lower your shave angle some more, and make sure your lather is very slick. That sticky suction effect can lead to weepers or even cuts if you lose your concentration for a bit. By the way, you will experience the same thing while honing, when a stone or film is beginning to achieve its maximum effect. We call that sort of feedback, "stiction". I am assuming you are using paste on a hanging strop. In time, the bevel will go slightly convex at the edge, and this will relieve the skin stiction quite a bit. Ironically, this also tells you that before long you will want to hit your finisher again, if you want that level of sharpness.

Originally Posted by rickytimothy

...because most skilled honers buy high end expensive equipment.https://imgur.com/a/exTurED

I may be the outlier here, but I don't have any high end expensive equipment at all. My most expensive gear is my set of Naniwa Superstones and I would be perfectly fine with just my Shapton Kuromaku 320, my Chosera 600, and lapping film, and of course my balsa progression; and indeed that is my go-to kit for many years now. I could even drop the Chosera and use my Norton 1k instead, and 400 grit sandpaper instead of the 320.

BTW, forgot to mention, I don't use a canvas, linen, or other fabric strop, either. Leather alone can definitely work.

Originally Posted by CrescentCityRazors

A highly polished bevel, even though we usually consider that to be a pretty good thing, can feel sticky sometimes. Lower your shave angle some more, and make sure your lather is very slick. That sticky suction effect can lead to weepers or even cuts if you lose your concentration for a bit. By the way, you will experience the same thing while honing, when a stone or film is beginning to achieve its maximum effect. We call that sort of feedback, "stiction". I am assuming you are using paste on a hanging strop. In time, the bevel will go slightly convex at the edge, and this will relieve the skin stiction quite a bit. Ironically, this also tells you that before long you will want to hit your finisher again, if you want that level of sharpness.

BTW, forgot to mention, I don't use a canvas, linen, or other fabric strop, either. Leather alone can definitely work.

How did you conclude "Ironically, this also tells you that before long you will want to hit your finisher again, if you want that level of sharpness?"

On ScienceOfSharp he determined that if you use only pasted leather without some sort of micro-convexity first, it tends to create a pretty intense burr. There is also apparently many ways to achieve this, including coticle, pasted linen, probably balsa as well (not sure). As long as you have one of those it's probably fine. The way I was doing it without the pasted strop was definitely giving me dramatically worse results, but that is the only step I have between 8k and clean canvas/leather.

In terms of "expensive" I meant mainly the guys who have these $100+ diamond plates, or $80+ high quality 1k stones, also the natural finishing stones get up there too. For me I have the King 1k, which tends to be disliked, and the Norton 4k/8k which is well liked, and a strop, that's it. Ironically I found someone who was selling high quality used stones for a great price locally, but I found out that he sold them all to my knife guy immediately before I spoke to either of them.

Originally Posted by rickytimothy

How did you conclude "Ironically, this also tells you that before long you will want to hit your finisher again, if you want that level of sharpness?"

On ScienceOfSharp he determined that if you use only pasted leather without some sort of micro-convexity first, it tends to create a pretty intense burr. There is also apparently many ways to achieve this, including coticle, pasted linen, probably balsa as well (not sure). As long as you have one of those it's probably fine. The way I was doing it without the pasted strop was definitely giving me dramatically worse results, but that is the only step I have between 8k and clean canvas/leather.

In terms of "expensive" I meant mainly the guys who have these $100+ diamond plates, or $80+ high quality 1k stones, also the natural finishing stones get up there too. For me I have the King 1k, which tends to be disliked, and the Norton 4k/8k which is well liked, and a strop, that's it. Ironically I found someone who was selling high quality used stones for a great price locally, but I found out that he sold them all to my knife guy immediately before I spoke to either of them.

Okay, I give. You win.

After reading ScienceOfSharp, I somewhat disagree. I probably would never have bought a pasted strop or a coticle stone without seeing his SEM observations of what happens to the apex when you use one of those, which would have subverted my results for a long time likely, unless I just bought exactly all of the same gear as a well known honer and followed the entire process from scratch (something I never really had an interest in doing because most skilled honers buy high end expensive equipment.) I suppose if I continued getting awful results for long enough I probably would have tried to copy the entire gear setup of a master honer though.

I get the vibe from some folks here that you dislike doing analysis, strongly prefer to just do manual trial and error until you get results.

To me, this is a very alien mindset, especially now that I work for a forensic engineer. Just thinking and analyzing what is happening to the steel at various stages of the process is very enjoyable to me, one of the more stimulating things I've ever taken part in easily. I come from a world where there is no point continuing unless you have some idea of what you were previously doing wrong. No fear at all of failure, just a different POV.

I run into exactly the same thing in carpentry. I spent over a year finishing a project of Chess board styled end-grain cutting boards, as I kept running into problems that I found more interesting than making cutting boards. This drove the carpenters I speak to crazy. "Just burn the wood and start over!" I enjoyed it thoroughly. https://imgur.com/a/exTurED[/QUOTE]

You've got more gear, and knowledge at hand, than I did when I started honing and shaving with a straight. But I'd learned to hone many things, before attempting a straight. So I have that hands on experience that your trying to put to a scientific understanding. Its a damn piece of high carbon steel, ground to a fine edge, then honed to a highly polished edge. The geometry is already built into a razor to create the proper bevel, weather its wonky or a tiny, perfect width, bevel. If the bevel is set properly, the rest is just a progression of higher grits, to polish out the previous.

As for no thought, or for you..scientific understanding.

I only had one hone of unknown grit, to hone my razor on, but I know now that its around 800 grit. But I knew that if I left the abraded metal on the stone from sharpening a few knives, that I could create, in essence a higher grit stone by limiting the cutting ability of the hone.

Strop: ol' leather belt I'd grown out of. Probably one of many that were put to my back side, as a kid. Dad restored cars, so I knew he had all kinds of polishing compounds, and knew what they were capable of doing to my knife edges. So I pasted one half of the inside of the belt with one compound, the other half with another.

The belt hung in a u-shape over a towel rack, nothing special, but it worked. Not bad, for a hilljack, with a highschool education, and a certificate of Git r Done. If I knew then what I know now, if I'd only had a good barbers hone, I could've been enjoying my shaves a hell of a lot more, back then.

Yeah...Master, Master Equipment..... Pfffft
I've got the equipment, the experience and enough knowledge to be dangerous, and could stand with the best of um. But I've spent very little on all my hones,or strops.



All but the Synthetic hones in the back row, were found at flea markets and antique shops. ( recently sold most of the synthetics ) I got lucky when I stumbled across a non labeled blue/green Thurigan for $15. along with others costing even less. Also a few razors and brush n mug, and a strop.


And I paid less than $150 for all.

Here's sumpin fer ya to set ya mind ta siferin. Ever heard of the KISS theory.?

If not, Google it. There's your sign...

Originally Posted by outback

Strop: ol' leather belt I'd grown out of. Probably one of many that were put to my back side, as a kid. Dad restored cars, so I knew he had all kinds of polishing compounds, and knew what they were capable of doing to my knife edges. So I pasted one half of the inside of the belt with one compound, the other half with another.

The belt hung in a u-shape over a towel rack, nothing special, but it worked. Not bad, for a hilljack, with a highschool education, and a certificate of Git r Done. If I knew then what I know now, if I'd only had a good barbers hone, I could've been enjoying my shaves a hell of a lot more, back then.

Belt? You were lucky to have a belt. Our dad used to wake us up at 9:30, half an hour before we went to bed, give us a 100 year old razor that was 3/8" wide with an edge 1/16 of an inch thick,



make us set a bevel on a 4k the size of a pencil eraser,



then make us strop it on a piece of textured rubber ,



then he would make us shave his face, and if the razor so much as tugged a hair he would beat us to death and post the pictures of our mutilated corpses on badgerandblade.

And if you tell the children of today this, they won't believe you.

Though my story is true. Really

Originally Posted by outback

Though my story is true. Really

All of the equipment in that post is stuff my dad actually uses, it's all that was around when I wanted to start sharpening, dead seriously. Actually even after I bought the 1k + 4k + 8k and the nice strop he still intentionally uses that pencil eraser stone.

Even after getting all the better stones, my Dovo was warped such that I couldn't get an edge on it anyway. It's been a long uphill battle.

Don't confuse keeping it simple with not wanting to understand it. My daughter told me about her physics teacher talking about hockey and he said "they're doing a whole lot of equations out there." As you may or may not know, I'm a huge hockey fan (Go Bolts!) And with the possible exception of Alex Killorn who not only attended but graduated from Harvard, I don't think very many of those guys really use a scientific calculator or a slide rule while they're playing and couldn't tell you a formula or a scientific principle about why what they're doing works. They just know how to do it.

To be honest, I think that guy from the science of sharp is over analyzing. Those microscope pictures are cool to look at, but in terms of honing a razor they're not really very useful. The amount of time and effort it would take to see everything that you needed to see through that tiny little subsection you can get in that microscope picture would take you forever. The edge would be oxidized and no good by the time you finished. Sure, it might be helpful for getting a really narrow understanding of a very broad principle but that's about it. I also disagree with a number of his methods.

I am a locksmith so my entire day…hell, my entire career is spent analyzing things, not only mechanical principles and understanding how they work but people's motives and whether or not they're on the level or not; it can make you quite cynical really; trust me, I know about analyzing things and what I also know from doing this for the last 45 years is that it's really easy to over think things. The simplest answer is usually the correct one.

My Dad had a sharpening business back in the '70s and '80s. He was mostly concentrated on saw blades, scissors , chisels and knives but he did hone razors also. By that time they were fairly phased out in barber shops, but there were still people that used them. Anyway, he never used any sort of magnification. He never had any fancy tools; even though I have a great big razor hone of his which I use I don't remember if I ever saw him use it, not that he didn't. I just don't remember seeing it. What I saw him use was a double-sided razor hone (Romo fast cut) a piece of cotton for checking for chips, a piece of cloth he did a slice test with and a leather belt. To final test the razor he would run it across his stubbly chin dry. I still use that same method today. It was not scientific, at least not to the extent of using an electron microscope but it was scientific enough to dry shave his face. What do you think people have done for the last few thousand years? They figured out a way that works.

To quote Josh Lucas from that movie Sweet Home Alabama, "Honey, just cuz I talk slow doesn't mean I'm stupid." I've seen that guy's pictures, I've also seen other pictures taken with a microscope back in the 1920s. That's all I need to see of that. Trust me I know what I need to know without doing all of that and Mike does more so than I do. You will one day too. And as Mike said you will look back and say, " Man I was really overthinking that."

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

To be honest, I think that guy from the science of sharp is over analyzing.

Is it necessary? No. Does it prove that the grit of strop paste doesn't really matter? Yes. Does it prove that amount of laps on a pasted strop doesn't really matter? Yes. Does it provide a real explanation for why a pasted strop is necessary? Yes. Does it prove that there are alternatives to a pasted strop that accomplish almost the same thing? Yes. Does it prove that a leather strop loaded with paste is not a viable alternative? Yes. Does it prove that very high grit finishing stones aren't really necessary? Yes. Does it prove that a very smooth progression of stones is not necessary? Yes. Does it prove that the choice of stone type / quality isn't particularly important? Yes. Does it provide a template for visualizing what exactly is happening to the edge of the razor throughout each step? Yes. Does it make it possible to make a decent guess at how much metal you lose every time you set a bevel? Yes.

I think it's some very interesting work he's done there, applying cutting edge modern technology to solve old questions about an ancient craft. I do agree that it's arguably sacrilegious trying to use such advanced technology to try to scientifically solve things that skilled masters have already figured out using their hands and a cotton ball for hundreds of years, but it's nice seeing this kind of rigor applied to something that used to be a craft which a master would teach in person to his apprentice, but is now the subject of silly arguments over the internet.

Keep in mind, when it comes to the oldschool approach vs the over-analyzed nerd approach, one of the key things that would make it relatively extremely easy to learn with a hands-on approach, is having a large amount of razors to practice on, or at least one razor with good geometry that you are willing to dull and re-sharpen over and over again until you have it the way you like it. So far, the majority of the razors I've had to practice on are either too expensive to risk ruining, too well honed to risk ruining, too warped to get a clean edge without special techniques, or so blatantly ruined already (see that 3/8" wide disaster I posted above) that it may not even be possible to get a good edge on it in the first place.

Now that I know my techniques are close to decent I'll bust out my Dovo and try to fix it up this weekend.

Well, I think you could argue some of those points in your first paragraph but...I'm not gonna.

Look, if you like what he does and it works for you then more power to you.

Now would be a perfectly good time to peruse ebay and buy a lot of two and you will have a bunch to play with before you know it. To learn it you have to do it...plain and simple.

Like this one for instance. Nothing fancy but a couple you could buy cheap and play around with.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/25574120909...mis&media=COPY