Thread: Some observations on magnification

Being a professional tattooist I have an old B&L stereo microscope that I bought used years ago for inspecting tattooing needles back in the days when we sterilized and reused them. This gave me a head start in learning where I was in the honing process. I can see micro chips or other anomalies in ebay specials and in any razor that may pick them up as I am going through the process.

Yesterday I was at work on a very slow day. I had brought a TI with me that came from ebay and a set of Norton single grit 1k,4k, and 8k hones. So in my nine hour day I spent quite a bit of it on this razor. I have the microscope at home and was using a 30X eye loupe purchased from Widget Supply as suggested in a thread by Kaptain Zero. Works very well with a large enough lens to gather plenty of light.

This TI was a troublesome razor. A 7/8 blade, on the TNT it glided over my thumbnail like a butter knife. I began on the 1k with circles and Japanese strokes. Before long it would pass the TNT and intermittently I would do the TPT. Eventually it was passing both of the tests and therefore should have been ready to go to the 4k and eventually the 4/8 pyramid.

I checked the edge with the eye loupe and found that one side had a perfect bevel while the other ,appearing to the naked eye to be perfect and passing the tests, did not. The mark side of the blade had apparently been rounded by the previous owner to the point where it had a belly in the bevel and it got nice and shiny but from the top of the bevel it did not quite reach the very edge.

If I didn't have the magnification I would have assumed that I had an adequate bevel set on both sides. I would have moved on in the progression and I would have been disappointed when I finally got to the shave. As it was, finding the problem, it took hours of patient and persistent honing to get rid of the roundness and finally achieve a complete bevel on both sides.

So what I found is that a honer can have a razor with an imperfect bevel that passes TNT and TPT . Without magnification he will be scratching his head as to why it won't pass HHT or give a smooth shave. I don't know exactly how many hours I have in this job so far. It is at least four or five and it ain't there yet. It is close though and I have moved on to the pyramids.

I think the reason why so many of the old barbers I talked to loved the Dubl Ducks, FWEs and other Solingen full hollows was because they are so quick to hone up to shave ready. These TI and Dovo blades are, in my experience, a lot harder to hone to a shaving edge. Good once they get there but it is a long hard road. For me anyway.

Jimmy: What are "Japanese strokes"?

Chris L

I've got that loupe as well.Very happy with it.Makes me a bit sad tough to see that scary looking microchipping of what I tought was a perfect edge...But seriously it helps a lot.All I need now is some honing skills

i totally agree with you (as far as the magnifying thing goes). i rehoned my former best shaver the other as it just wasn't cutting it anymore (literally). it is a Treebrand Boker i bought that has some wear but the blade is pretty straight and it did cut well when i got it. so i took a look at it under 100x magnification (my scope is really cheap so it might not be exactly 100x) and holy crap did somebody do a number on it. the bevel was shiny but there were some really deep scratches all through the bevel that were way deeper then what my 1k would do. i just couldn't leave them like that so i went to work repairing the bevel. i went back to the 1k and then went up to the 4k and so on and besides a couple very small nicks it looks good. this was a razor i thought would just need a touch up, and maybe i could have gotten away with it but now i have a great shaver that has the same smoothness that it had before, i really like this thing. if i hadn't had the mag. i wouldn't have had much luck honing and it would have been one of those "i thought a touch up was just back to the 8k" with crap results. also the one side was quite a bit worse then teh other which i wouldn't have seen with my 10x loupe, after i evened things out it was popping hairs like crazy. now it isn't just a smooth shaver , its is a great shaver.

Originally Posted by Chris L

Jimmy: What are "Japanese strokes"?

Chris L

Glenn referred to them as Japanese strokes in another thread. I can't recall which one. It is kind of the back and forth motion you used when you were a kid and had one of those paddles with a small rubber ball attached to a string. Kind of an edge forward then back hone stroke done fairly rapidly with a bit of pressure. I used to call them paddle strokes.

They should be called livi strokes in honor of what he does in this video
YouTube - SnakeRazor