Thread: How polished should my edge look?

I found what I needed. I shouldn't be so lazy and just do a search sometimes.

I have found that the 10x loupe best shows you that you have a good V shaped bevel.

I have a 200x computer microscope and it shows you lots of detail, but as the guys say above, the only real test is a shave.

You said you have to use a slicing motion to cut hair. Yes this can help, but to be honest you shouldn't have to do this and it tells me you may need to get the edge a little sharper. Before going to a hone again I would suggest that you first look to your stropping technique. Try doing at least 50 return passes on your strop and see if that improves the ease of shaving your beard. The blade should cut your beard quite effortlessly.

How an edge looks under magnification depends a lot on the lighting conditions and the viewing angle. An edge may look like a mirror, turn the razor a few degrees and and that same edge looks like the Grand Canyon. If the razor is partially lit from the back, light diffraction at the very edge might even project "microchips" that aren't even truly there.
With some experience you can learn to look for flat bevel panes, ruling out roundness, but even then, it is not possible to see the width of the line that's formed by the tip of the bevel triangle. Hence you can't "see sharpness" with optical magnification. (an electron microscope aimed directly to the tip of the bevel makes it possible to accurately measure the width of the bevel tip).

On another note: there's a big difference between a magnification device's resolution and it's magnification factor. I'm not talking about digital resolution, but about optical resolution. A scope or a loupe can only show a given amount of detail, depending on the quality of the lenses (and there's even a physical barrier defined by the wavelength of the visual light spectrum). More magnification doesn't automatically mean more detail. It often offers only the same detail bigger. That's why you might be able to get more detail out of a quality 10X loupe than out of an inexpensive 200X USB-scope.

How scratchy your edge looks depend on the hone you used. But the visual appearance of the scratch pattern tells not the whole story. Some hones leave an obvious scratch pattern and still produce superb shaving results. Coticules are notorious for this. I recently read Josh Earl's thread http://straightrazorpalace.com/hone-...-naturals.html where he's surprised how scratched the edges are from his highly appraised Japanese natural hone.

If it shaves well, I wouldn't care how it looks.

Bart.

Good point. The shave is the ultimate test.Well, I am going to hit the strop and see what happens. If that doesn't work it will be time to do a pyramid.

If you decide to do the pyramid use the conservative one first, then strop and test shave. The aggressive pyramid is the last choice.

Thanks, I did the conservative and will see how it shaves tonight.I hope I got it right.

HEY! It worked. I got a fairly decent shave last night. I think I need to tweak it a little on my coticule and I should be all set.I am still a newbie so now my technique will need some honing too but pretty nice.

Thanks guys

Congratulations! Your persistence & patience has paid off!

Now try the coticule with water only, no slurry, then strop and test shave.
Let us know how many laps you used on the coticule and the shaving results. I would use 50 + light roundtrip laps. YMMV on that point.

Thanks. I will try 50 light laps and see what happens.

Originally Posted by randydance062449

Congratulations! Your persistence & patience has paid off!

Now try the coticule with water only, no slurry, then strop and test shave.
Let us know how many laps you used on the coticule and the shaving results. I would use 50 + light roundtrip laps. YMMV on that point.

What about using a coticule dry? Is that even finer than just wet (I assume with slurry is more abrasive than just wet, but where does no slurry and not even wet fit in?) I just received my coticule last night and am experimenting.