Thread: Best newbie resource on honing?

OK, I've got some days into this, using a Norton 4k/8k with limited success. Everything seems just on the wrong side of sharp.

My thumbs just don't seem sensitive enough for a thumb pad test, judging from the performance with my shave ready Dovo from Tony Miller that shaves really nice. I can watch the razor cutting into my skin without feeling it. Maybe I'm too calloused.

I've run through aggressive pyramids, gentle pyramids, lots of 4000 laps, minimal 4000 laps, stropping before testing, not stropping before testing, slurries, no slurries, head hairs, chest hairs.

I have one razor I honed that seems OK, and another that is almost so.

My goal is to get good at this before my razors look like my great grandad's butcher knives that's ready for retirement as a fillet knife, or before I go totally bald all over my body from HHT harvests.

What's the best resource for learning to go to at this point??

Lynn's video is very good if you haven't spent your first 100 hours trying to figure out what you are doing wrong and you are doing simple "straight blade" honing. If you aren't doing simple "straight blade" honing you should be.

If you are honing smiles, warped blades or blades with no bevels I would recommend that you get a razor honed buy someone who really knows how so that you can see and feel what your target is. Even if you are doing simple straight blades you should still probably get a cheap sharp blade from a honemeister. Send one of yours out.

Some minor points, I have learned recently:

1) You are trying to sharpen the edge not the spine.
2) You can't sharpen a blade that doesn't have a good bevel. If it isn't sharp @ 4k it won't be sharp @ 12k.
3) 4K is grinding, 8k is polishing.

It took me 3 weeks and grinding the spines half way off of 2 wapis before I started to get a sense of things. The 3rd took me about 90 minutes although I'm not entirely happy with it yet.

I am just learning how to hone a smiling blade now and it is a whole new game. You need to know where the bevel is (3-d sharpening) vs sharpening a straight wapi where you just have to focus on a straight x-pattern and even pressure (2-d sharpening).

-Bob

ScottS,

I too, had trouble with the TPT at first, due to hardened skin at my thumb pad. I use the very tip of my thumb now, direct behind the nail, where the skin is softer and more sensitive.
Another member here, that goes by the name "Sticky" recommends practicing with a fresh, regular safety-razor-blade to get the hang of it. I haven't tried that myself, because I've figured it out before I learned about Sticky's advice, but I think it's a great suggestion.

If, after all the pyramids you did, your razor still isn't sharp, I think that's because your bevel is not where it should be. I recommend doing work at the 4K side of your Norton till the bevel passes the various sharpness tests: it should shave arm hairs without any effort and clearly pass the TNT. I also recommend the Magic Marker Test, which is great to check the state of your bevel and offers an answer to the question whether your honing stroke is affecting the bevel along its entire length or not.
There's an excellent document about testing and probing a razor for sharpness while honing, written by SRP-member heavydutysg135. You can find it here:
http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php?t=31640

When you're confident that the bevel of the razor is okay, then you can go back to the pyramids, which should lead to shavereadiness rather soon thereafter.

In my experience, honing is like learning how to ride a bike.
Don't despair. You will eventually get it. And then it won't be long before you wonder what was so peculiarly difficult about it in the first place.

have fun, and keep us posted,

Bart.

Lynn's DVD is the best resource available for new
shavers and aspiring honemeisters!

- Scott