Thread: Please clear this for me, honing ratios

Hi Rob,

Mr Ham's razor spends more time in the air than on the strop, and i love that little loop he is doing above the leather side in 00:27 second of the video

Cooool

Originally Posted by superfly

I had some experience sharpening knives and chisels, for one of my other hobies (instruments building), and i must say, razor is more dificult to sharpen than any other blade i have tryed... Eather the steel on my SS blade is much harder than the other cutleries, or the hone grit is too fine, or i am afraid to grind some metal.

Hey Superfly, glad to hear from you. I was wondering if we scared you off during chat :lol:

Yes Indeed... the straight razor is a different beast...
If you have been sharpening plane blades and chisels and gouges for instruments I have no doubt that you'll get the hang of this as well.

It takes a completly different mind set and approach than most blades. Yet the principles are the same.. you want to establish a good edge first with the 4K and then refine that edge with the 8K. I am not shy about taking my razor to the hone, so I may have an advantage. But I will say that you can do ALOT of honing on the 4K with out removing much steel. I say this because I've now had to work out a nick in my razor twice.

I screwed up again today. I accidentally "taped" it against the sink and created yet another nick in the blade (im a complete clutz.. it's a wonder I havent decapateted my self yet).
This time it only took me about 30min total to get the blade back to working condition.
I think it was good for me and the blade because now the entire blade is finally evenly sharp. I can slit a hair anywhere on the blade.. and before I had a hard time getting about 9-10mm of the tip sharp.

Hi Kelly,

On my second shave i also taped the blade on the sink, I didnt created a visible nick but "flatened" a good 3-4 mm portion at the tip. This was visible only if i held the blade against very bright light, and came out with the first couple of strokes, so i didnt give it much tought.

I am glad to hear that you got your blade sharp the whole lenght, it supports my theory that the hand made blades are only as good as the masters work day: The DOVO video tour at the nassrasur web site is good explanation. There are a couple of seconds of the video where a lady hand hones the razor on a flat hone. It seams to me that the razor is not touching the hone with the spine, and she is doing some strange loops with the tip of the blade...

I am confident that i will manage to put a good edge, but will take some time.

superfly

I found it interesting that this area has the most activity in it. I guess the art of honing a blade is where we all feel the weakest. :shock:

My normal routine unless doing circles on the 4K side of the Norton is:

5 strokes 4K-5 strokes 8K
3-3
1-3
1-3 to 5 sometimes 1-7 on a stainless.

This is on a regular honing job and followed by 10-15 strokes on a coticule or escher before stropping and test shaving.

For very dull razors I might start at 15 or 20 strokes tops on the 4K side followed by 15-20 on the 8K side and work down to 10-10 and then to the above.

For nicks I usually will use the circles on the 4K side or go to a courser stone. For refreshing I usually just try a couple of 1-3's or 1-5's. You can also try 5 on the 8K followed by 10 on the coticule.

Although every razor is different and you can experiment significantly with this pyramid, it has worked consistently for most razors. There will always be a stubborn one though, so don't get in too big a hurry or become frustrated too quickly.

Have fun.

Lynn

Interesting closure to a more than a year old, but never dead topic, and from the master himself Thanx Lynn!

Nenad

um
where does one get a coticule?

Depends where one lives.

You can order them straight from the quarry: http://www.ardennes-coticule.com/engels.htm

Or from their dealer in Germany who got lots of interesting info on coticules, some of it in English most of it in German: http://www.belgischerbrocken.com/

Or from Howard: http://www.theperfectedge.com/belgian.shtml

Some members get them from ebay.