Thread: I'm officially stumped

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

I'd stand on my head if it let me get my razors sharp

If I were you I would try as many methods as possible. Read about the way various people hone their own razors and start playing around with techniques. You never know what is going to work for you so don't adhere too strictly to any one persons method. This will take a while, so in the meantime send one to a pro.

Try and keep in mind that the advice we try and give here is general recommendations that are more or less classical techniques that have been used successfully for many many years by an awful lot of people. Certainly there are some people who seemingly do everything the direct opposite and have great success. My advice initially is to learn to do it the classic way and once you have some experience under your belt then you can strike off on your own and experiment and adapt things to your own ways. As they say all roads lead to Rome. As long as the razor gets sharp thats what matters but also remember if you try it some unorthodox way, bad habits are hard to break and if you mess up your edge, well you know who to blame.

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

If I were you I would try as many methods as possible.

Should I take this to mean that I should attempt standing on my head to hone?

Thanks for the help guys. I'll try out a few more things and report back.

Does the razor pass the HHT off the 1200 (I'm not sure it's possible off the 1200 grit, I'm just asking)? I've been using a Shapton 2000 grit stone for setting bevels and I use the marker test first, then a combination of the TPT and the edge passing HHT off the 2000 grit stone. Prior to this, I didn't even think an edge COULD pass an HHT off that coarse of a grit but it can and does for me when I feel the bevel is set.

I agree on stropping. I grabbed an old Joseph Allen & Sons that was so dull, I'd probably have to press the edge into my hand with some pressue to cut. I wanted to practice with my hanging strop on a razor that would have little chance to nick it. I've been using a paddle strop and consider myself to still be very inexperienced in stropping with a hanging strop. Anyway, 100 practice passes and although the edge isn't close to keen, I was VERY surprised how much sharper the edge of that very dull razor was!

RE: the slurry on the yellow; I've had bad experience with slurry on the yellow coticule. So much so, that my "cotigura" has sat gathering dust on a shelf for months and months and I doubt I'll use it again. The only reason I haven't posted a "free to a good home" post to get rid of it is that it may slightly increase the value of my yellow should I ever choose to sell it. I found that slurry on the yellow significantly changed the edge in a negative way for me compared to plain water (nice edges there). In contrast, I DO like the Belgian Blue slurry stone I've been using on my Blue stone, but that makes sense to me since the blue IMO is a cutter and the yellow a polisher. The blue slurry seems to enhance the cutting action.

Chris L

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

Should I take this to mean that I should attempt standing on my head to hone?

Yes.






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