Thread: Norton kit arrived!! One question...

My apologies if I haven't been keeping up with the honing cycle of your razor but I assume that by saying "its back where it started" that that is a good thing.

Everyone I think has a little different approach to all this and I'd like to suggest some ideas from my bag o' tricks . . . if you don't mind.

I would ease up on the 4K, its aggressive and can do some damage if you don't know what your doing. I would start doing more work on the 8K at this point and only use the 4K by exception.

Your at the point though that sort of separates skill levels in honing.

At this point a good smooth stroke is really important, really important. Each stroke should be the same length and angle. Start with a little pressure on the 8K and smoooooooth it out, then move to less and less pressure. By the time your nearly done, no pressure should be added at all.

I often hone like this for 40-50 strokes, then if I fail to achieve a perfect edge I add one 4K stroke and start all over again. I would call it "Honing for Dummies", luckily it fits me perfectly (no comments please )

.5 paste won't do jack until you've got the razor smooth on 8k. But I think most people would say that 5-6 strokes and your there. I'm a little more impressed with what say, 20-30 strokes can do.

One "mind picture" to have here is the thinning bevel. Its important I think to thin the bevel exactly similar on each side. The thinner you make it, the harder this becomes. As the edge gets thinner and thinner the slightest deviation between sides of the bevel and you over abrade the bevel.

So if smoothness is important to a shave on the bevel, thinness becomes akin to sharpness. Sharpness is most easily (and I don't mean easy from your skill level perspective) attained by repeatedly abrading the bevel with exactly equal pressure on each side. Most people use the weight of the razor as a guide to obtaining this exactness.

Once you understand the fragility of this concept your honing will likely improve dramatically. Imagine the horror of honing on one bevel side, near razor sharpness in perfection, with one stroke on one side that is 4 inches long and one stroke on the other which is 5 inches long. The side with a 5 inch long stroke would over abrade the entire edge and it would thus be destroyed.

In your mind it seems that "you hone forever" on 4K or 8K, or whatever. From the razors perspective you over hone one edge then overhone the next repeatedly. Never really obtaining the hyper fragile length of an edge we refer to as sharp.

Placing this idea in the forefront of your mind should make honing much more clear as to its objectives and its challenges.

Thanks for the advice, Alan -
With some more work (I was doing 1-3 and 1-5), I have it where I can *ALMOST* feel it sticking when I tap it with my thumbpad, so it's improving. I'll give it longer on the 8k and see if it improves.

Besides - it's 11:30 at night and it's snowing...what else do I have to do? ;o)

Excellent, your almost there. I like to strop it first and judge the stickiness from there. The nice thing about a thumbpad test is it gives you an assessment of the shaving quality of a blade. Few tests can do that, with the exception of just shaving.

From here, soon anyway, the razor should be catching, then cutting, then obliterating arm hairs with increasing authority!

no luck with anything on the arm hairs yet.... ;o\

Patience my friend. It took me 4 years to learn how to hone. It will likely take you an entire deployment.

I'll be happy to get it shaveable!

4 years? Hmm...so if I'd started as soon as I got here, I could be where you are now...damn the wasted time!! *grin*

Thats a long time in Kosovo. Study up a little on the quality of your stroke. Once the basic concepts are down its easy to hone a razor, but you need the practice.

The great thing about the 8K is that it is cutting, but very slowly. This gives you time to practice your stroke and creates less trouble if you make a mistake.

Make sure you curl your pinky under the scales and that the scales are set to the precise pivot point that the razor will not lift off the hone when using no pressure. Your index finger and your thumb can act as the fulcrum in a pivot point between the scales of the razor and the blade.

The more the scales are closed the more pressure is applied to the edge of the blade. When we say using no pressure, we mean NO pressure.