Thread: Close, but no cigar: consistently mediocre honing

I realize this may be a pretty general problem description, but I'm putting it out there looking for ideas from successful honers, with as much specific info as I can.

I've been shaving with straights for about two months now, and over the past several weeks have ended up spending a pile on hones. My setup now is a DMT 325, 1200, 8000 (all 8 x 3), a Chinese 12K, and a Shapton 16K is my most recent purchase.

I have several razors, 3 or 4 are inexpensive eBay "project" razors, and one or two came shave-ready from the BST. In my inexperienced hands, all are now uniformly mediocre shavers.

What I do have going is consistency - whether I completely start over on the DMT 325, or just touch up on the Chinese 12K or Shapton 16K, I have a bunch of smooth-shaving but not very sharp razors. All are sharp enough to shave with at a basic level, but none pass any HHT test, or get me shaves like I was getting with a good vintage DE. I haven't ruined any razors that I can tell, but none are anywhere near as sharp as I think they could be. Noticeable pulling when shaving ATG on all of them, more so on the ones less than 6/8ths.

I'll give one very detailed example, maybe something will jump out that I'm doing wrong. I recently got a cool Henckels 6/8ths, shoulderless with a French point and a smile (Show and Tell thread here):
- Used one layer of electrical tape, and a perpendicular rolling sawing motion on my DMT 325 to get rid of some micro-chipping and reset the edge. All strokes afterward described below were rolling X strokes.
- Did about 100 strokes on the DMT 325 with the one layer of tape
- I took off the tape, and moved to the DMT 1200, and did another 200 strokes.
- Moved on to the DMT 8000, about 200 strokes.
- Moved on to the Chinese 12K, and did about 300+ strokes (100 slurry, 100 wet, 100 dry) trying to polish out the scratches from the DMTs.
- Did another 100 strokes on the Shapton 16K
- Finished with about 40 strokes on a home made Chrome-Ox balsa strop.
- Also did abut 50 strokes on a leather strop.

The bevel looks even to me at 10X. The edge feels sharp on my thumb, and will catch arm hair above my skin, but only if angled a little downward. Still lots of scratches on the bevel portion. But not even close to passing the HHT, and the shave was really sub-par, less sharp than my usual honing jobs. Another clue is I seem to have better luck with old chopper-style razors, thick and wide. My best shaver is a W&B chopper that I did about 400 wet strokes on the Chinese 12K. That nice edge did not last long on that razor, however.

Am I over-doing it, under-doing it, or missing something in my progression? Do I just need to keep at it and gain more experience? Thanks for reading through all this!

I'm not much further up the learning curve here, but I guess my question is why take the tape off after setting the bevel? I personally replace it with a fresh tape. It seems to me that after removing the tape, you are left honing new metal above the edge you had set with the 325, rather than refining your bevel. IIRC heavyduty made a nice diagram of this in his video. You may want to use the marker test before you begin on the 1200 to see if this is indeed what is happening.

I'm not a great honer (I've been at this almost 3 years, but I sometimes go a month or two without honing a razor - I have enough to allow that - it may sound arrogant, but I hope you all you know what I mean ). Sometimes my honing is pretty good, sometimes it's less than great. So take everything I say with a grain of salt.

You say you have smooth shaving razors, but they don't pass the HHT. So?
The HHT means nothing compared to a shave test.

If you mean that you have a bunch of razors that "shave", but not as "smoothly" as you'd like, I understand. Some of mine are like that. I have a Jo. Elliott that Joe C. restored and honed for me. I dinged it on the sink one day. I honed out the ding on the 4K/8K then touched up on Chrom/ox. It’s a great shaver, no problem - to my surprise.

On the other hand, I have a few others I've been struggling to dial in - a Bengall, a Clauss, an Eicker&Sohn, hell, even my friodur has been difficult at times.

In general, I've found that I've been under-doing it. However, simply getting the feel for honing takes practice.

The other issue I would suggest you examine is your own expectations. Once you can do a decent shave, you may wonder why that doesn't happen every day. It could be that your technique doesn't keep up with your expectations. What worked great as a newb, doesn't cut it for you. Then you have to play around a little and you have less than great shaves sometimes.

My last bit of advice would be to stick with your set-up until you master it. Don't be tempted by all the chatter here that another hone will magically make things work. That would be another variable to account for. Let us know how it goes.

Jordan

I am not an expert honer either but I do note a few things that may be causing you some problems.
- If you are going to start out with tape, I would continue using the tape through the entire progression. If anything, as you get to finer hones, you may want to increase the thickness of the tape to get a double bevel.
- Second, I would not start out with a 325 hone unless the blade was in very poor condition.
- Third, I would not be dropping back to a 1200 unless you needed to re-establish the bevel. It is a bit coarse for a razor in good condition.
- Fourth, the jump between 1200 and 8000 is quite large. You may want to consider having something in the 4K range to bridge the gap. It is difficult to remove the scratch pattern from a 1200 using a 8000 hone. The scratches from the 1200 are rather deep for the 8000 to remove very fast. It can be done but it is a slow process.
- In general, you should find that once you have your edge in good shape, you should be able to maintain it with an occasional touchup on your 12K every 3 to 6 months depending on how heavy you use your razor.
- Finally, you may find that Cromium Oxide paste will help provide a nice final polish on your razor before stropping. I found that it really helps to smooth out the edge even coming off of my Japanese Nakayama hone.

Originally Posted by netsurfr

I am not an expert honer either but I do note a few things that may be causing you some problems.
- If you are going to start out with tape, I would continue using the tape through the entire progression. If anything, as you get to finer hones, you may want to increase the thickness of the tape to get a double bevel.
- Second, I would not start out with a 325 hone unless the blade was in very poor condition.
- Third, I would not be dropping back to a 1200 unless you needed to re-establish the bevel. It is a bit coarse for a razor in good condition.
- Fourth, the jump between 1200 and 8000 is quite large. You may want to consider having something in the 4K range to bridge the gap. It is difficult to remove the scratch pattern from a 1200 using a 8000 hone. The scratches from the 1200 are rather deep for the 8000 to remove very fast. It can be done but it is a slow process.
- In general, you should find that once you have your edge in good shape, you should be able to maintain it with an occasional touchup on your 12K every 3 to 6 months depending on how heavy you use your razor.
- Finally, you may find that Cromium Oxide paste will help provide a nice final polish on your razor before stropping. I found that it really helps to smooth out the edge even coming off of my Japanese Nakayama hone.

Yup, I missed that. I also keep the tape on through the final phase, if only to keep things consistent.

Jordan

Thanks for the replies. I used tape only for the first step, because I didn't want to scratch the spine of the razor too much. It makes sense, though, that if I started with tape I should keep the tape on for every remaining step of the progression.

I also found an inexpensive King (Samurai) 800/4000 combo water stone for $27 at Woodcraft, which should bridge the big gap I have between the DMT 1200 and 8000. I'll skip the 325, and start with a re-bevel at 1200, and let you know how it goes. I'm pretty much addicted to honing at this point, it's not a chore. I really want to become competent with this. Shaving with my own "custom" edge is a big part of why I picked up straights in the first place.

I'm going to watch heavyduty's honing videos again, too. He makes it look easy, it's inspiring.

The 8k DMT is an extremely fast cutter, it'll handle a jump from the 325 straight to the 8k, no problem.

The "problem" could be the jump from the 8k DMT to the Chinese 12k. The DMT 8k puts an 8k scratch pattern on the edge, but those scratches are deeper and more ragged than other 8k hones so the 12k may have trouble cutting through them. But the number of strokes your doing on the finishing hones should make up for it, so I don't really know what to make of this.

Can you describe how much pressure your using? A little pressure is acceptable when you use the 12k with slurry, but then ease up a bit when it's just water on top.

I'd say take one of the razors that's shaving but not as well as you'd like, put a piece of tape on the spine and start in on the 12k w/ slurry, then with just water (dry works for some guys, but not for all, for some reason) and finish with the Shapton.

At this point I'd recommend stropping on leather for ~100 strokes (take a break if you get tired ) and give it a test shave. Pastes will hide any inconsistencies in your honing technique, so try and avoid it until you can get an acceptable shave with just the hones.

Most guys who offer honing services will tell you whats wrong with a blade if you ask them to inspect it for you, before honing it. If you gave it your best shot, then sent it off to be inspected, you might get some tips on what your missing.

All great advice so far.

A few thoughts:

1. For learning, don't bother with tape. You practice on a razor that doesn't mean much to you, right? If you use no tape, for now, you don't have to second guess certain issues that tape can introduce in honing.

2. If a razor shaves arm hair above skin level, along the entire edge, than you can be sure that the bevel panes are properly meeting each other. Provided that you didn't use pastes, which add some convexing to the edge. All it takes from that point, is proper refinement and polishing of the bevel.
You should be able to achieve this with just the DMT 8K and the Shapton 16K. I 'd reserve all other materials for the fun part of future experimenting, once you learned how to get good consistent results from a basic and simple progression.

3. It's possible that all your previous efforts have left you with a weak and prone to chipping edge. This possibly falsifies all further attempts.
Here's a tip: put your practice razor with its edge on the surface of your DMT 1200, as if you were going to cut it in half. Perform one, slow stroke, using just the pressure of the blade. If it's a smiling blade, you need to follow the blades curve. This will render the razor absolutely dull, but also removes any possible weaknesses from the very edge.
Next, moisten the DMT 1200 with some water (add a drop of dishwashing soap to the water, for use on the DMT'S), and hone without much pressure till the razor passes your version of the arm hair test.

4. From there on, 30 light laps on the DMT 8K and 30 light laps on the Shapton 16K should lead to a very keen edge. Strop 100 laps on leather (taut strop, just enough pressure to have some draw from the strop on the razor) and test shave. If you estimate there's still margin for inprovement, do another 50 laps on the Shapton, strop and test again.

*. I'm not saying I dislike your other hones, quite the contrary. I only think you should learn from this basic progression, and expand your skills from there.

Good luck,
Bart.

Everyone gave you good advice before I jumped in. +1 on what they said. To add to their comments in my limited experiance I found that I was putting too much pressure on the blade while honing, even though I thought I wasn't using much at all. It is something you will have to get use to. Also on that note I was putting more pressure on one side than the other trying to keep the toe and heel on the hone at the same time. I think I remember Lynn stating on one of his vids " lighter pressure will give you a sharper edge". Also, with the difference in my pressure and probably slightly warped blade, one part of the edge would get sharp before another part. When I continued honing the first part to become sharp developed a wire edge. You may be getting this also. If I find I am having a problem getting a good edge I back hone a fer strokes. Using the pyramid method of honing helps here (wee the Wiki). Good luck and don't give up.

Thanks again for the helpful replies! I now have three razors that will pass the HHT first try. On two of them, the hair really pops.
I had free time this weekend, so I relaxed and really focused in on what I was doing with honing. Looking through my cheapo pocket microscope, my bevel looked solid to me. So I figured that whatever I was doing wrong was starting sometime after the DMT 1200 stage, it's great for bevels.

Getting the King 4K water stone was a great idea, thanks. Not so much because it's 4K, but because it has tremendous feedback. As much as I like the DMTs, they have very little feedback to them, other than scraping. I reduced my number of strokes to between 20 - 40, went very slowly with very light pressure, and paid very close attention to my rolling X stroke. I slowly chased the little water wave evenly across the entire length of the blade during the length of the stroke, really getting the feel of the edge on the stone. And wham - I got a killer edge off the 4K. I could feel it on the stone. Very encouraging and helpful.

Then I tried to recreate the same feel up the progression on the DMT 8K, the Chinese, and the Shapton 16K - light pressure, low strokes, relaxed consistent strokes. I could feel a definite smooth drag or suction during the slow strokes I was doing when the edge was right at each stage, especially on the non-DMTs. I repeated this sequence with two other razors, and got the same result. The "suction drag" on the Shapton is particularly intense, the more polished the edge gets on a sharp razor.

The time I spent the past few days learning feedback on the simple 4K water stone was the single biggest help. I like my DMT 8000, but wonder if I missed the boat on "feel" by not starting out with a Norton 4/8 water stone. Really watching the stroke, really feeling the stroke, was the key. I think before I was using inconsistent strokes and pressure - trying to compensate for my lack of feel by doing hundreds of strokes, many of them probably bad strokes just canceling out the good ones.