Thread: Super Smooth

Thank you as well. Now I'm tempted to use the Norton and leave out the Belgian. If they both work the same, I'd rather use the Norton because it's simply easier to use because of its width.

By the way, what's everyone's thoughts about using a double bevel?

Both are good hones, it's just more of a 6 of one, a half dozen of the other. I have a Norton and the Belgians and I happen to prefer the Belgians of the two. I found the Norton a bit messy and annoying to have to soak first, plus I actually found I got better results from the Blue/Yellow combo, in particular the Coticule seem to bring things home for me. That said, there's plenty of skilled gents that use the Norton so it's most likely what ever you get used to I guess.

Double bevel, it's done by some of the custom razor makers for one very simple reason, it's much faster to hone to a reasonably good edge and then toss on an extra layer or two of tape so that you hone a small micro bevel for the finish... it's not better, just faster and custom knife/razor makers can't dillydally about with honing if they want to even get close to being profitable. Woodworkers do the same thing, grind a basic bevel but hand hone a micro bevel which is much faster than trying to hone the entire bevel.

For razor owners, it's not so much an issue as once you establish a good edge using a single bevel, keeping it sharp takes pretty much the same time as a double bevel and doesn't require the tape. The only razor I use tape on is my Joe Chandler custom as that's how Joe honed it to start and being a 7/8" 1/4 hollow, I'd just as soon keep the spine looking new for the next 50 or so years!

Regards

Christian

Double bevels on razors... Quite an advanced topic, imo. I have experimented with them quite a bit. Some of my razors have them, others don't. I like my razors to be as sharp as possible. Not all razors respond the same to a given honing method. A razor can take a very keen edge, while another one's edge might just crumble away, both with the same progression. Sometimes things can be resolved with the creation of a secondary microbevel. Defnitely not something to think about before you gained some confidence with regular, single bevel honing.

The typical honing paradigms explained to most newbies on this forum, lead to a good basic shavereadiness. A lot of people are quite happy leaving it there and achieve a lifetime of smooth shaves with those methods. They're reasonably inexpensive, whether one uses the Norton 4K/8K-combo, or a DMT1200 in combination with the Belgian Blue and Coticule. But some of us get a bit carried away, on a probably never ending quest for more keenness, more smoothness, and as if that's not already enough, we become uptight about the edge longevity too. (that tends to decrease as sharpness increases). We spend a fortune on Shaptons 30K, rare Japanese Nakayama hones, all kinds of exotic paste substances and substrates, lapping systems, etc. It's a hobby, or an illness if you like. For me, double bevel creation has a place in all that.

I'm hesitant to give an example, since we're in the basic honing section, but for the sake of you owning a Belgian Blue, let's go ahead...
The Belgian blue is a great hone, loved by many, but also often underestimated. I think that is because it is rather cheap and also because it is very slow. When used with slurry it is a good performer for removing the agressive scratch patterns of hones such as the DMT 1200 (or even the 600) and Norton 4K. The Belgian hones, both the Blue and the Coticule, don't really produce ultra fine scratch patterns, but thanks to the elleptical garnets they use to remove steel, the resulting surface has a unique, smooth and shallow, wavy scratch pattern. The Blue's waves are a bit wider, but at the same time probably even shallower, than the waves of the Coticule. If you refine a good bevel on a Blue with slurry, the resulting edge maxes out on a certain level. The same will happen when you hone that bevel on a Coticule with slurry, which will in most cases be much faster as the Blue, but the maxed out level is typically a bit less keen on the Coticule.
The most likely explanation is that the garnets in the slury abrade the very tip of the bevel a bit while honing, which prevents the edge from becoming sharper once a certain level is reached. The advantage is that you can't overhone.
When used without slurry, these hones get exponentially slower, losing most of their refining abilities, which means that they can still smooth out the harshness of an agressive scratch pattern, but become much too slow to do anything significant once the steel surface becomes solid as they approach the bottom of the scratches.
The blue with water is so slow on hard razor's steel, that it becomes practically unusable. It would take a ridiculous amount of work to achieve something beneficial for the keenness of the edge. More pressure would improve things, but you'd just bend the edge on a hollow ground razor, so that's a not a valid option.
Unless... You would add 2 or 3 layers of tape to the spine, and hone on the Blue with water only. Because now all abrassive action is diverted to an extremely small area at the tip of the bevel, the Blue will remove steel. As soon as that secondary bevel widens, the abbrasion will slow down again, but by then, you already have what you were after: the edge smoothness of the Blue, without the downsides of using slurry (there more to say about this, but this post is already way too long as it is).

I don't have a Chinese 12K, but I reckon the same principles can put to use on that hone. Without the double bevel method, it's a good hone for smoothening out Norton 8K scratches, but you probably won't be able to refine the 8K edge any further. With the double bevel method, you could get some edge refinement from the 12K.
The end results would definitely be different. Whether you 'd like them better, depends on the razor as much as on what you expect from an edge.

Once again, this is no stuff for the beginning honer. You really must manage to get a decent edge from more orthodox methods first.

Best regards,
Bart.

I think I'll keep it simple for now. Although I plan to be shaving for a good long time with a straight, I want to master the basics first.

Also, and update. I really concentrated on establishing a good bevel on the 4k. And as said, just used the 8k and the 12k to refine the edge and polish the edge. And that was the best shave I've gotten off of a self sharpened razor. The only pulling I experienced was on the curve of my jaw.

Out of curiousity, how long does it take everyone to set a bevel? I spent about an hour taking my time.

I plan to do some more work though. Like I said, I plan on mastering the basics.

Originally Posted by biggbadwulff

Out of curiousity, how long does it take everyone to set a bevel? I spent about an hour taking my time.

It never takes any of us longer than 3 minutes 47 seconds........ not!

Setting a bevel on a razor takes however long it takes, minutes, hours...... or even days if you're really fighting with one and don't want to ruin it by getting sloppy because you're getting tired. When I start feeling frustrated with a razor (I've got one right now, it's NOS but it's got a badly ground spine and I'm not getting it to go the way I want), I'll just put it down and go on to something else... Eventually I'll go back to it with fresh eyes and work at it some more until I either get it right or once again put it down until I feel like working on it again.

Glad to hear the shave went well.... a little tugging on the jawline is normal for me.... nothing uncomfortable, just something I notice. Beware of the search for the perfect edge, besides pushing your razor to a wire edge by going too far on the hones, it can lead to all kinds of wallet emptying afflictions such as HAD. If it shaves well, I'd continue to strop and shave with it until the edge starts to deteriorate... if you only get a few shaves before it feels like it needs some honing, you probably didn't have it as sharp as it could be, if you get a good 7 to 10 days worth of shaves before that "it could use a touch up" feeling, it's pretty darn good in my books. I don't like to remove metal from my razor unless it stands in the way of a good shave. If you want to keep honing for practice, get a few more cheap, old but good razors and work on them while shaving with the good one. That way, you'll always have a freshly honed razor ready should the one you're using now go dull....

Regards

Christian

Sounds to me like you're doing very fine.

As the good Captain said, creating a bevel takes as long as it takes. An hour is nothing out of the extraordinary. Luckily, once you got a good bevel dialed in, you don't have to do that again, provided that you don't change the tape regime (if you use tape at all) and you don't damage the edge by hitting it against the faucet, rounding it on the strop or some other calamity.
If a razor needs rehoning, I usually do a few very light laps on my bevel-setting hone, check with a TNT and a crude version of the HHT, to see if I'm where I want to be. That doesn't take long, depending on the razors condition, and whether I'd been using a pasted strop for doing touch ups prior to rehoning (which is known to convex the tip of the bevel a bit). A matter of minutes.

For a few final words of advice:
The maximum level of sharpness you'll get out of your current progression depends on how consistently you manage to do the lightest possible strokes on the flattest possible hones. Always end with light pressure on the 4K and keep it light thereafter. Watch the wave of water in front of the edge and how it runs up the edge as a gauge for a well balanced honing stroke. The Captain is also right that you should give it a few shaves once a razor 's honed, enjoying and evaluating the results of a job well done. Meanwhile, a few Ebay junkers can feed the honing rage.

Bart.

I actually reset the bevel with only one layer of tape. I figured I was going too extreme.

Originally Posted by Bart

If a razor needs rehoning, I usually do a few very light laps on my bevel-setting hone, check with a TNT and a crude version of the HHT
Bart.

What exactly is a crude HHT? I ask because I've never been able to do a HHT on purpose.

What I've been trying to do is what I heard called the velvet squeegee. I just wet some of the hair on my arm and see how much effort it takes to cut it.

I can't answer for Bart but I have my own dirty hht.... actually two of them. One is to simply pass the blade above my head where I have plenty of very thin hairs sticking up (I'm pretty near bald on top) and can instantly tell by the pinging where my edge is at.... second and final dirty hht test is using my mustache, it always needs trimming anyway and so I'll just trim a few hairs with the edge when I'm finished as I can tell by the tugging if the edge is smooth enough for me.... Now, if I were honing for pay.... I'd be fully bald, no mustache AND have hairless arms, not to mention be out of work as I couldn't test razors anymore!

Christian

Originally Posted by kaptain_zero

I can't answer for Bart but I have my own dirty hht.... actually two of them. One is to simply pass the blade above my head where I have plenty of very thin hairs sticking up (I'm pretty near bald on top) and can instantly tell by the pinging where my edge is at.... second and final dirty hht test is using my mustache, it always needs trimming anyway and so I'll just trim a few hairs with the edge when I'm finished as I can tell by the tugging if the edge is smooth enough for me.... Now, if I were honing for pay.... I'd be fully bald, no mustache AND have hairless arms, not to mention be out of work as I couldn't test razors anymore!

Christian

That sure are some dirty HHT's

With "crude HHT", I mean that I find it acceptable that I need to drag the hanging hair over the edge, for 1/16 of an inch or so, before it catches and pops. For absolute clarity, I'm still holding the hair only at one end. I think it's basicly the same as the "mow arm hair" test, where one tried to pop a few arm hairs above skin level. This is usualy done by riding the razor with the spine over the skin while raising the edge a little.

Bart.

If that's the crude test, I've been able to pop hairs on my arm like that for a while. So any idea why that pulling sensation on the jawline persists? My beard's not the coarsest, so I don't think it's that.