Thread: guess i have practice blades

so i picked up three straights off of ebay called, "selective". something told me this was a bad idea considering they were only 5.50 + s&h. but who can turn down 3 for $11?
so they get here and i see that they are made in crapistan. not saying anything about the country, just their ability to make a razor that's better than a butterknife...
here's the question, has anyone actually honed a pakistan blade to the point that it's usable and will hold an edge for more than 3 shaves? if so, how long did it take. i'm not even looking at this like a loss. i got three blades to practice my honing skills on

Never Had a pakastani blade, but I suppose everyone need a crash test dummy.

From what I've read here, trying to practice on the pakistani blades will just lead to frustration. They are so poor that they can't actually take an edge and you'll just get angry trying. If you're curious to see what you can do, than go for it, but everything I've heard says it isn't worth the time.

Great question. What value does a Zeepk or the likes have as a practice razor for honing?

I'll take some wild guesses here (pure speculation).
Everyone says you can't get an edge capable of giving a decent shave...getting 3 shaves is out. I think that applies to even getting a single good stroke with it.

So if it's not possible to achieve a shaving edge with it how about setting a good bevel? Seems it would be adequate for practicing your stroke for being able to set even, consistent bevels?

How about initial polishing after that? (obviously it appears that final polishing is not possible).

Could you use it to get a feel of how long it takes on one hone before it's time to move to the next? Just roughly? You could probably look at the edge through a magnifier to see the coarser scratch patterns? And watch them as they're removed?

Originally Posted by Quick

Could you use it to get a feel of how long it takes on one hone before it's time to move to the next? Just roughly? You could probably look at the edge through a magnifier to see the coarser scratch patterns? And watch them as they're removed?

I'm not just trying to be argumentative, but I don't think it would really help you get a feel for how long to spend on a hone either. If the metal is as crappy as the general consensus says, it will be much easier to remove than a good, hard steel. If you did manage to get a decent bevel or even edge, it seems to me that it would take substantially less strokes than the average shaveable razor. Of course it could also take substantially more due to the difficulty of working with inferior steel. Either way I don't think it would really teach you much about time per hone. It may be useful just for getting comfortable with the motions...

Yea, I thought about that. You're probably right. I was just thinking that it is metal. So maybe you could discover (with just the coarser stones) something like it takes about 2x more strokes on the next stone than the previous. That kind of thing. Surely everything would be scaled up with harder steel.

I guess it would matter if it's just softer steel or if it's also significantly inconsistent steel (from one spot on the blade to another or with pockets in it, etc.).

When I made the same mistake several years ago I found that the grinding on the razor was so poor that the thickness of the spine was uneven. That made it almost impossible to hone. They were made from very soft steel ( in razor terms) and did not hold an edge worth beans!

Try getting some honing practice out of them. They may have improved.