Thread: Question for DMT users

If by "fin" you mean removing a wire edge, I'm not talking about that; I'm referring to creating a clean and straight edge in very short order with simultaneously removing micro-chips and nicks to vintage razor edges thereby making the edge ready for bevel setting rather than honing and honing until the chips are gone. IME both methods accomplish the same thing and in roughly the same amount of time, it's just a different way of doing things. Wire edges would easily be removed in the same manner.

Sorry, I brought this post off topic in bringing this up in the first place. Shame on me!

Chris L

Originally Posted by Chris L

If by "fin" you mean removing a wire edge, I'm not talking about that; I'm referring to creating a clean and straight edge in very short order with simultaneously removing micro-chips and nicks to vintage razor edges thereby making the edge ready for bevel setting rather than honing and honing until the chips are gone. IME both methods accomplish the same thing and in roughly the same amount of time, it's just a different way of doing things. Wire edges would easily be removed in the same manner.

No, with "fin" I'm just referring the finest outer part of the edge. The part that's affected by stropping, and under the right lighting conditions shows up as silver lining at the very edge. (probably just light diffraction). I believe we're both addressing the same thing.
It's my opinion that if you need to remove a bad part of the edge anyway (chips, corrosion,...) it's better to cut to the chase and "sawhone" to clean steel first. It is slightly faster and I feel it leads to a cleaner meeting of the bevel panes.

Originally Posted by Chris L

Sorry, I brought this post off topic in bringing this up in the first place. Shame on me!

I takes two to tango, Chris, so I must claim half of the shame.

Bart.

Well guys, first off I love the aquisition of new knowledge, so if your being off topic allows me to learn more than I am game.

Let me clarify some things. I "sawhoned" the blade because the edge was un-even. I'm not talking about the bevel, I'm talking about the edge itself. Also, it wasn't un-even as in a smile/frown where the center/edges of the blade hits the hone. The edge of this blade looked wavy when viewed from the side, like shaving your face with a shallow sine wave.

Also, I sawhoned the blade well before I got this hone and established the bevel with sand paper and the belgians. What I did this time around was pretty it up some which naturally killed my edge but was still far from the damage sawhoning did.

Last night I decided that I was happy with it passing the TNT test even though it would not shave hairs and decided to move to the blue to see what I get. I think it was Bruno who said he expects the TNT to pass off that grit size and then moves up. Well after about a hundred laps on the blue it was shaving all along the blade. I have since done about 300 laps wet and 200 dry on the blue. (I just like to hone.)

Is it my technique that keeps me from getting a shaving edge on the DMT6E or perhaps the specific razor? This is the first I have tried on the DMT6E, maybe I will get different results with different razors.

You can tell by my long posts that me and my fiance don't discuss my honing in detail and thus I come here to let it all out.

Regarding shaving armhair at the DMT 1200 grit level:
if you get a great edge in the end, I wouldn't bother. I personally never got great results, if I wasn't already at the "shave hairs"-level at that stage, but if your mileage varies, I wouldn't worry too much. This isn't about shaving arms hair. In the end, It's about shaving your beard.
But, in case you should decide to go back to the DMT after all (which wouldn't surprise me), it really does matter for my results how much pressure I apply. I don't apply much pressure in general, but once I get a good TNT result, I really start doing almost zero pressure strokes.
It helps me to add some swiftness to my stroke, although an experienced honer like Randydance often advices against it. But I really can notice how the keenness increases every couple of strokes with that method. I keep a little box with a strand of clean hair, next to me for doing the HHT.
I don't stop till the HHT passes along the entire edge. It's a bit of a dirty version of the HHT, as I need to drag the hair accross the edge a bit, before it catches and pops. It takes me about 50 of those "swift" strokes back and forth, to get from the TNT to the crude HHT.

The Blue:
I only use the blue with a not too dense slurry. With water it's great to practice the stroke, and if you really do a lot of strokes it will eventually remove the DMT's scratch marks, but if you seek further refinement of the edge, you really need a slurry.

From where I start on the Blue, after 50 to 100 laps with slurry, the edge maxes out at a given level of keenness. That's when it's time to go to a yellow coticule, used with water only.

Different razors, different results?
Well yes, but in my experience, all razors so far easily reached shavereadiness with the aforementioned method. Differences emerge in what lies beyond that level. Some razors can be pushed further up the sharpness envelope and still keep good edge retention. The further you step into the realm of ultimate keenness, the more unpredictable it becomes how a razor responds to a certain treatment (such as stropping on CrO). But all my razors shave arm hair off the DMT, and they all shave well off the coticule.


Bart.

The DMT6E is 1200 grit. I think it is normal that you don't get a shaving edge off of it. That's not what it is menat for. the ~1000 grit level in honing is to make sure the bevels are set correctly and touching each other in a sharp edge. After that, the purpose of honing is to ploish away the scratch patterns of the 1000 grit stage and to smoothen the edge so that it becomes both sharper and smoother.

The Blue is a 4K, and since it is a very slow cutter, it also polishes to a reasonable level, so getting a shaveable edge of the blue is to be expected.

Well I decided that there is plenty of time to experiment later so rather than spend more time using just water on the blue I decided to use some slurry. I don't have a slurry stone so I just rubbed the stone on the DMT a little, worked very nicely.

The edge is definitely coming along. Hopefully this weekend I can spend some time finishing it up for my Sunday shave. Thank you all for the wonderful advice.

On a side note, when I rubbed the blue on my DMT I noticed a pretty good scratch down the middle of the blue leading me to think that either there was some grit there, or the is a spot on the DMT that needs more breaking in. It's odd that something that feels so smooth to the touch could leave such a scratch. I have since run a screw driver over the entire thing a few times and sharpened a couple pocket knives. Hopefully that took care of it.

Yes, the D6E is a very good slurry builder.
No problem whatsoever using it, if you're without a dedicated nagura stone.

I stumbled across this older post of mine and decided to post an update. That blade ended up being one of my top shavers.

I have since used the dmt6E on all my hone jobs since then and it has varied a bit from blade to blade. I did a couple NOS blades out of Mass. and they cut hairs with ease right off the 1200. I find the 1200 is great for setting bevels on more hollowed blades. I have been going at it on a W&B 1/4 hollow with some chips and it's a painfully slow process.