Just a little Shapton review

Well, I've honed about twenty five blades on my new Shaptons now. Enough to finally form an opinion on them.

I gotta admit, I wasn't impressed at first. I had a hard time transitioning from my DMT's to the Shaptons. It turns out that pressure is key. The "use no pressure when honing" mantra has been repeated among these forums so many times. I guess I'm gonna have to agree to disagree with this. As I mentioned in another thread, I have "benign tremor", or shaky hands. The entire time I honed on the DMT"s, I concentrated on using the very lightest pressure I possibly could; just enough to accurately guide the blade down the hone. Using this light of pressure on the Shaptons simply did not work. I wasn't getting anywhere. So I *increased* the pressure, albeit very slightly. This immediately changed things around.

In addition to the increased pressure, I've found it necessary to "refresh" the surface of the Shaptons quite often. Just a quick rub with one of the other Shaptons is enough to refresh the surface. It seems the key is swarf... if you aren't getting any swarf, it's time to refresh the surface. Seems pretty basic, but yours truly managed to hone for like twenty minutes with no swarf before the realization hit me. :gaah:

Coming off of the 1k Shapton, I'm getting a crude passing HHT. The scratch pattern that the 1k Shapton leaves in the blade is soooo much more uniform than the DMT. Honestly, I think it's possible to cut a thinner bevel on the 1k Shapton than you can on a DMT. I say this because I can consistently get a blade much sharper on the Shapton than I can on the DMT.

So how much pressure? Hmm.. Recently, someone posted a video showing them honing on a coticule bout. There was quite a bit of "wow, that's alot of pressure" feedback from the guys here on the forum. I can't find that video right now, but if you're familiar with it, I'd say that's about the same amount of pressure I start out with on each Shapton grit. Then I do laps with decreasing pressure until I'm done with that stone. The Shaptons give great feedback. They pretty much tell you when you are done with each stone. A quick verification with the microscope confirms this.

The 16k is a great finishing stone. I can't wait to compare the coticule's edge to the Shapton 16k. On about half the blades, I've gone right from the 16k to the strop, the other's I've taken to .25 diamond paste first. I have to admit I'm a diamond fan; I really like the edge off of .25 diamond, and have yet to get the "too harsh" feeling that seems to be the dominant sentiment regarding .25 diamond around here, but then again, I lean toward the *really* sharp edge (like a factory shavette) as being most comfortable, even if it does leave a few weepers behind. My beard is extremely coarse, and the easier it is to cut through it, the better (for me, at least). I've had no problems getting blades to darn near shavette sharp. Increasing the laps on leather seems to really decrease the weepers caused by this sharp of a blade, while still maintaining the overall sharpness. What AFDavis says about leather really is true, "The strop is for the comfort of your face." And for you guys that don't have a fabric strop... get one. :) Glen kept mentioning to me that his stropping routine always included linen passes. I am SOLD on linen before leather, especially if you like a *really* sharp blade like I do.

There is a great difference in the blades I've sharpened with the DMT's vs. the Shaptons. In my mind, the Shaptons were a great investment. They are just *that* superior to the DMTs in final edge quality and comfort. I had no idea that such variations were possible; I thought sharp was sharp. pfffft. Not even close. The edge you can get off of a good quality set of stones is simply amazing.

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Originally Posted by FloorPizza

So how much pressure? Hmm.. Recently, someone posted a video showing them honing on a coticule bout. There was quite a bit of "wow, that's alot of pressure" feedback from the guys here on the forum. I can't find that video right now, but if you're familiar with it, I'd say that's about the same amount of pressure I start out with on each Shapton grit. Then I do laps with decreasing pressure until I'm done with that stone. The Shaptons give great feedback. They pretty much tell you when you are done with each stone. A quick verification with the microscope confirms this.

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You pegged it there IMO. "Weight of the blade" "No or virtually no pressure". Those terms are often not taken in the right context. IME it's unnecessary and even counterproductive to use no pressure on lower and mid grit stones. You've found an effective formula to taper off pressure at the end of each grit. On some razors with problems, others would probably shriek at the amount of pressure I've had to use at low grits to set bevels on some problem razors that ended up being great shavers. Yeah yeah, rolling hone stroke, I know. Every razor is different and some IME require creative and in relation to the norm, somewhat drastic measures.

Chris L

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Originally Posted by Chris L

You pegged it there IMO. "Weight of the blade" "No or virtually no pressure". Those terms are often not taken in the right context. IME it's unnecessary and even counterproductive to use no pressure on lower and mid grit stones. You've found an effective formula to taper off pressure at the end of each grit. On some razors with problems, others would probably shriek at the amount of pressure I've had to use at low grits to set bevels. Yeah yeah, rolling hone stroke, I know. Every razor is different and some IME require creative and in relation to the norm, somewhat drastic measures.

Chris L

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Same here. :D

Have you recieved your coticule yet?
I've experimented a few hours between the shapton 16k and my new bout.I really really like it.
Kristoffer

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Originally Posted by KristofferBodvin

Have you recieved your coticule yet?
I've experimented a few hours between the shapton 16k and my new bout.I really really like it.
Kristoffer

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It tracks as being on time for tomorrow delivery.. Not that I keep checking on it, or anything...

He he, cool.I think I'm gonna need a blue one.I've used my bout on a few edges now, and shaving with my first tomorrow.Absolutly zero microchipping in mag.Very smooth.

Kristoffer.

That's a great review.
On the pressure issue: I really feel that it largely depends on the hone. I don't own any Shaptons, so I can't speak for those hones, but there 's quite a difference on pressure requirements between my Belgian hones and the Naniwa Chosera line. On the Belgians, I find it is absolutely imperative to achieve good keenness without minimizing the applied pressure, especcially during the slurry stages on those hones. On the Chosera's, that I use with plain water, it is not possible to minimize the pressure like that. They simply generate too much suction, to move as light-handed as on the Belgians. Maybe it's the nature of the Belgians, maybe it's the use of slurry, I don't really know. Perhaps, with the use of slurry, the razor needs to float on a very thin layer of slurry, in order to favour the amount of steel removal off the bevel pane (which does the actual sharpening) over the abrassive effect of that same slurry on the very tip (the slightly dulling effect of slurry).
Without slurry, it makes no sense lowering the pressure like that: you might be honing on a layer of water, instead of on the hone's surface.
It's just a theory.
On my DMT1200, which obviously has no slurry, I definitely can only reach sufficient keenness to pass a crude HHT, when I finish the work on that hone with as low pressure as possible.
But I absolutely believe you when you state that this is not true for the Shaptons. If I'm not mistaken Glen (gssixgun) has made similar observations in his posts.

Best regards,
Bart.

On the shaptons I use a very slight pressure. not so much a down pressure but a little torque on the blade towards the edge. RandyDance described it as 60/40 edge/spine. I think that in order to do that you're going to apply a very slight down pressure as well.

I think that it is essential to differentiate between Honing and Edge restoration here when speaking of pressure, no matter the stones used....
Somebody honing a new TI or Dovo for instance does not need to push the edge, they just need to gently guide it through the sequence of stages...hence where the No pressure / "Weight of the blade" came from....Also if you go back in time 3-4 years even the blades coming off e-bay were in much better shape, listen to the old timers here, it was not that unusual to snag NOS razors at all, now it is getting to be more and more rare...

If you are on stones that are below 4k in grit, guess what, you are not honing a razor you are restoring an edge, when you hit the 4k grits then you are sharpening and at 8k and above you are polishing/finishing... the pressure difference follows this also IMHO...

I have posted this before but I will write it again this is my own interpretation of what happens on the stones....

Below 1k = Pre-bevel cutting (Really bad or re-ground edges)
1k-3k = Bevel formation
4k-6k = Sharpening
8k - 10k = Polishing
10k - whatever = Finishing

This might be interpreted differently by Natural stone users by the use of slurry but essentially it still is the same...

When you're saying that you have to give the razor a little push on the 1k-2k Shapton's what you're doing is making the edge conform to the way the stone cuts if you notice when you move to the next stone 4k you no longer need to give it that push because the edge is now ready to move along and is inline with the Shapton's way of cutting...
The best thing about the way Shapton's work, is that the tactile response is so definite, there is no doubt that the edge is not ready, you can feel it as you are honing, and you can really feel the difference when the edge is ready to move higher....



Sorry for so much rambling...

Glen, please ramble more often... every time you do, I learn something.

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Originally Posted by FloorPizza

There is a great difference in the blades I've sharpened with the DMT's vs. the Shaptons. In my mind, the Shaptons were a great investment. They are just *that* superior to the DMTs in final edge quality and comfort. I had no idea that such variations were possible; I thought sharp was sharp. pfffft. Not even close. The edge you can get off of a good quality set of stones is simply amazing.

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Great review, Floor Pizza, but you are doing nothing for others like me in stages of pre-HAD :rofl2:!!
Seriously, you should put this in the "Reviews" section were it might be seen by more people. Keep up the good work.

I have long disagreed with the "no pressure" school of thought until, that is, you get out to the 16k and 30k shaptons and also the finishing strokes on a coticule. If the blade is dull, you have to grind away steel and a Shap1k will do that but you have to use some pressure. I regularly see people posting that they have honed a blade for a couple of hours and they're not getting results. It surprises me. Once I get the bevel set right, the rest of the progression through 4k, 8k, 16k, and 30k takes about 20 minutes and the blades are then shave ready.