Thread: Absolute disaster; ready to throw in the towel

Don't give up! The satisfaction of shaving with a razor you have honed is great! Check out HeavyDuty's vids in the Honing FAQ (the link is in a reply message). You picked a couple of doozies to start with.

I have been honing chef's knives and other blades for ages...and I had to start from scratch when doing a razor. I asked lots and lots and lots of questions ( to all those who responded patiently), watched the videos several times, read posts here and then gave it a shot. First time - got an edge but not shave ready. Back to the Belgian and the Coticule....stroke, stroke, stroke...no, not yet...stroke, stroke stroke...nope...stroke, stroke...etc. Finally, I got it where I wanted it. Bruno is correct - the ONLY way to guarantee that a blade shaves well is to shave with it. The various tests are just to give you feedback from the blade as to how you are progresssing...look for the mirror edge, listen for a consistent sound during the pass (a sudden change in tone, IME, means there is a rough spot), feel the steel as you move across the stone...these blades are made from some of the finest steel produced during their time - it will communicate to you. After practice, you will hear, feel, and see the "sharpness" of the edge.

Honing is like most simple things....very time-consuming to master as, while there are only a few variables, they must all be in sync, with little room for error. I would liken honing to spit shining boots, making meringue, frying chicken, grilling a steak, applying finishes, etc. - all fairly simple as far as steps, ingredients/components, but leave one thing out of sync and you get to start over.

Thanks to everyone for the advice/encouragement. I really hate giving up, so I'll check into some of the things you mention. I want this to work out, but I also don't want to spend all of my free time trying to figure it out. I'm willing to invest some time, but not hours upon hours. I guess I just had a rough start yesterday and should have stopped instead of kept going.

Thanks again!

Payne

Mostly very sound advice in the replying posts.

If I may add a few thoughts...

1. Learning how to hone razors is a bit like learning how to ride a bike. Some people might catch on very quickly, but most don't. It's not important, all that matters is that you'll master it eventually. In the beginning, regular practice is important. Don't do one nerve wrecking session once every week. As soon as you get fed up, your honing stroke will indubitably suffer, and the likelihood of poorly judged honing decisions increases. Do regular and enjoyable honing sessions instead.

2. The idea behind all honing is that two sides of a blade meet at the cleanest possible line.
To accomplish this with hones:
-all hones must be flat.
-the spine must always keep a point of contact with the hone.
-stroke pressure must be kept low, and rather become lower, and never higher, during the the course of honing.
Fail one of these conditions, and your razor shall never be keen. Not even by one remote chance in a billion.

3. Avoiding pitfalls is very important in honing. One error can undo previously done work and render future honing steps futile. Start by sticking close to a given recipe from a reputed source.
(heavydutysg135's honing series in the video section, is a good example: http://straightrazorpalace.com/video...eo-series.html)
There are other approaches, that are equally proficient, but the unexperienced mixing up of different methods can pose such a pitfall.

4. About that vintage Sheffield. As already clarified in other posts, that razor has a warped blade. You seem to have done enough work to hone that out. The resulting reversed tapering on both of the bevel panes needs to be taken for granted. The shape of those panes doesn't matter, as long as they're meeting in that perfect clean line I spoke of in point 2 above. Your next goal on that razor is to refine the coarse scratch pattern of your DMT 325. That will take ages on the 4K. I personally use two intermediate grits to bridge such a gap. (a DMT 600 and a 1200)
DMT's need to be broken in properly. Otherwise your edge will be microchipped.
Once a razor has a decent bevel, you never need to go coarser than your Norton 4K again.

5. If you manage to learn how to ride a sloppy bike, you'll be able to ride them all.

Good luck,
Bart.

I know what you men about wasting hours trying to learn, i just wanted to get on with it, but I have accepted that this is a long term project and like any art to be mastered it will take perhaps months of patient practice.

Learn to chill with the process, let it become a meditation of sorts, you can't paint a masterpeice in a day, it takes years to learn to really paint.

When you can shave to perfect smoothness with a few skillful strokes and hone your razor sharper than a surgeons scalpel in a few minutes then you will really appreciate the time it took to get to that stage.

if iti was that easy there'd be a lot more people doing it.

At least that's what i am telling myself right now.