Managing without pastes

I have come to rely on the HHT with my hair ( I have very thin hair on my head.)When a razor pass this test all along the edge, it will allmost allways give a superb shave.However, sometimes I have a very difficult time achiving this without the use of pastes.If am in the last phase of a honing process, I have never experienced that 20 laps of linnen with chrom.ox didn't push the edge to pass my test.
I rely try to avoid using paste tough.Not because I don't recognise them as a tool, but mainly because I think it is essential to avoid them if you have any aspirations to become better at honing.And I sertainly have!

How about you guys, are you using pastes unless you really have to?


Kristoffer

My advice to anyone facing this question is this:

After any honing session, always do your first shave (or at least the first pass of your first shave) without benefit of pastes. Then if needed do a few strokes on the chrome oxide.

This way you can monitor your improvement on the stones, without sacrificing comfortable shaves.

Then when you achieve honemeister-esque skills, and there's no question you're maxing out your stones' potential, you can decide if you prefer the edge off stones or off chrome oxide.

Plenty of top honemeisters, including Randy and Lynn, use chrome oxide. Others find that the ideal edge comes from stones alone. There are a number of factors involved, including beard and skin type and just plain old preference. Skill on the stones is only one factor, and the system I've described allows you to isolate it.

I have felt the same way about using pastes. I want to get there on the hones. I have only found two blades that really required pastes for me to get up to speed and that was an ATS 34 Ellis and a TI Damascus.

Other then those two I have used the method described by dylandog above of only resorting to pastes after the first pass is not up to my expectations. Then I do either 10 passes on chrom ox or 0.05 diamond spray on felt. Following the shave it is back to the hones with it.

At the same time there is a part of me that feels that pastes are just another vehicle for getting the razor up to the full potential and there is nothing wrong with using it. I suspect that if I ever get to the ultimate level of skill with my hones that using pastes routinely won't have me feeling like I am using a crutch to make up for a lack of skill.

I imagine most people don't have a philosophical debate going on in their head about whether is is alright to use pastes or not. It is just another vehicle to get a razor shaving sharp. Lynn calls this a sport and that is how I feel about it too. I guess some of us neophytes feel as if using pastes is equivalent to a ballplayer using steroids. Intellectually I know that isn't so but emotionally I feel that it is.

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Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I have felt the same way about using pastes. I want to get there on the hones. I have only found two blades that really required pastes for me to get up to speed and that was an ATS 34 Ellis and a TI Damascus.

Other then those two I have used the method described by dylandog above of only resorting to pastes after the first pass is not up to my expectations. Then I do either 10 passes on chrom ox or 0.05 diamond spray on felt. Following the shave it is back to the hones with it.

At the same time there is a part of me that feels that pastes are just another vehicle for getting the razor up to the full potential and there is nothing wrong with using it. I suspect that if I ever get to the ultimate level of skill with my hones that using pastes routinely won't have me feeling like I am using a crutch to make up for a lack of skill.

I imagine most people don't have a philosophical debate going on in their head about whether is is alright to use pastes or not. It is just another vehicle to get a razor shaving sharp. Lynn calls this a sport and that is how I feel about it too. I guess some of us neophytes feel as if using pastes is equivalent to a ballplayer using steroids. Intellectually I know that isn't so but emotionally I feel that it is.

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:rofl2: Couldn't agree more!



Kristoffer

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Originally Posted by KristofferBodvin

[/u]:rofl2: Couldn't agree more! Kristoffer

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As my wife used to say ......... before the divorce ....... "Great minds think alike." :tu

I'm having partial success without pastes. Some razors are good enough (though I still feel I can do better) and others fall far short of shave ready, and I will resort to pastes. But I am determined, like a bloody-minded fool, to be able to avoid pastes for all of my blades eventually.

My 2 cents are this....
I think your confusing Sharp and Smooth...
Sharp: is a definable limit to that particular edge, it can only get so sharp off the hones... Once you can reach that limit and know you reached that limit "Your There" you can hone a razor... By the way you should be "there" at the 4k stage... (not to be confused with using the Pyramid method)

Smooth is everything after Sharp :D

That my story and I am sticking to it...

Ok, I wount argue your expertice,but answer me this: If a razor of the hones will cut thick hairs(Like dog hairs) But it wount cun thin hairs ( like those on my head.) After 10-20 laps on chrom.ox it will cut the thin hair.Why is that not sharpnes?


Kristoffer

You're refining the edge, same as if you were just stropping on leather, you bring the edge to it's ultimate point.. I guess if you wanted to get very technical that is "sharpening" too...

Thank you, now you earned some norwegian chocolate.:-)


Kristoffer

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Originally Posted by gssixgun

My 2 cents are this....
I think your confusing Sharp and Smooth...
Sharp: is a definable limit to that particular edge, it can only get so sharp off the hones... Once you can reach that limit and know you reached that limit "Your There" you can hone a razor... By the way you should be "there" at the 4k stage... (not to be confused with using the Pyramid method)

Smooth is everything after Sharp :D

That my story and I am sticking to it...

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I'm going to have to respectfully disagree on that one.

The sharpness of an edge is defined by the width of the bevel tip.
Every hone will remove steel, but at the same time, it will also abrade the bevel tip. The keener a bevel becomes, the weaker it's tip. At a certain point, the hone will start to abrade the tip as quickly as it removes steel from the faces of the bevel. At that point honing further on that hone has no purpose. Another hone, with gentler (read slower) cutting properties can refine the bevel tip further, till we hit the barrier on that one. There is no reason why 4K should be a limit. As a matter of fact, I can feel the difference in keenness very well during a shave, if I compare 5K edge, finished on a Coticule, with a 10K edge, finished on the same Coticule. The former pulls ATG, the latter doesn't.

If a bevel tip measures 0.5 micron, and you manage to reduce with 0.05 micron with an 8K hone, I'm pretty sure that makes a significant difference in the ability of that tip to sever hair. Because we are exactly in the critical range for severing hairs. But is a bevel tip of 1 micron is reduced with 0.05 micron with the same 8K hone, it will shave just as marginally (or not) as it did before. In the former case, the 8K has significantly added to the keennes of the edge. In the latter case, it just offered some polishing.

CrO on a strop, to answer Kristopher's original question, has the power to convex the bevel a bit, because there's always some cushion in the substrate that carries the paste. That diverts all abrasion to the tip. Secondly, the direction is away from the edge, introducing pastic flow as an aid in shaping that same tip.

Bart.

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Originally Posted by Bart

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree on that one.

The sharpness of an edge is defined by the width of the bevel tip.
Every hone will remove steel, but at the same time, it will also abrade the bevel tip. The keener a bevel becomes, the weaker it's tip. At a certain point, the hone will start to abrade the tip as quickly as it removes steel from the faces of the bevel. At that point honing further on that hone has no purpose. Another hone, with gentler (read slower) cutting properties can refine the bevel tip further, till we hit the barrier on that one. There is no reason why 4K should be a limit. As a matter of fact, I can feel the difference in keenness very well during a shave, if I compare 5K edge, finished on a Coticule, with a 10K edge, finished on the same Coticule. The former pulls ATG, the latter doesn't.

If a bevel tip measures 0.5 micron, and you manage to reduce with 0.05 micron with an 8K hone, I'm pretty sure that makes a significant difference in the ability of that tip to sever hair. Because we are exactly in the critical range for severing hairs. But is a bevel tip of 1 micron is reduced with 0.05 micron with the same 8K hone, it will shave just as marginally (or not) as it did before. In the former case, the 8K has significantly added to the keennes of the edge. In the latter case, it just offered some polishing.

CrO on a strop, to answer Kristopher's original question, has the power to convex the bevel a bit, because there's always some cushion in the substrate that carries the paste. That diverts all abrasion to the tip. Secondly, the direction is away from the edge, introducing pastic flow as an aid in shaping that same tip.

Bart.

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Funny I think we are agreeing Bart but you are taking it all the way down to microns, which I whole heartedly agree that when you "polish/smooth" you are going to get those few extra microns out of the edge...
Like I said you can to get real technical, here if you want.... and call that sharpening...

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Originally Posted by KristofferBodvin

Thank you, now you earned some norwegian chocolate.:-)


Kristoffer

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:y:y:y YES !!!!!!

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Originally Posted by KristofferBodvin

Thank you, now you earned some norwegian chocolate.:-)

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Talk about incentive!! Next to cracked ice scales and spike point blades, there's not much Glen won't do for Norwegian chocolate. Or so I've heard <g>

I use pastes after every razor, and often just for maintaining. I don't reapply very often so I think what's on the strops and paddles works very slowly. I switch off between .25 diamond paste and Dovo's red/black. Can't really tell much of a difference between the two. I don't have the, much talked about, issue of too harsh an edge from the .25.

At some point I'd like to try the green CrO that is so widely used.

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Originally Posted by Bart

CrO on a strop, to answer Kristopher's original question, has the power to convex the bevel a bit, because there's always some cushion in the substrate that carries the paste. That diverts all abrasion to the tip. Secondly, the direction is away from the edge, introducing pastic flow as an aid in shaping that same tip.

Bart.

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This brings up another thing I have been pondering, does anyone else see the similarity to what Bart just said, and creating a double bevel, arn't you basically doing the exact same thing ??????

It does sound like the same thing.Mabe when creating a double bevel with a stone, you'll get a more uniform micro bevel, since the stone not being fluid at all.Also, wouldn't there be a difference in that you remove the steel in a different direction while using a pasted strop compered to a hone?



BTW: A bit of topic.I have a linnen strop that used to have TI paste on it.I scraped of the TI paste and applied chrom ox on top.Recently I read somewhere that this was a big NO NO.I haven't tried the chrom ox on any different medium.But wouldn't this wost case meen that my paste would be a little coarser?


Kristoffer.

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Originally Posted by gssixgun

Funny I think we are agreeing Bart but you are taking it all the way down to microns, which I whole heartedly agree that when you "polish/smooth" you are going to get those few extra microns out of the edge...
Like I said you can to get real technical, here if you want.... and call that sharpening...

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Yes, I think this is just about the definition of terms.
I am pretty sure you have a deep understanding of what makes an edge good and what makes it better.
Both our approaches emphasize on the importance to hit sufficient keenness in the early honing stages. I think that's the main point.

On your other point: imho, convex bevels and double bevels have a lot in common. Both lend their effectiveness from diverting the action to a smaller region near the tip of the edge. But what they don't have in common, is that double bevels are formed by honing "into the edge" and convex bevels are formed by stropping "away from the edge". For some reason, edges that are mainly formed by "away from the edge" abrasion, are eaten alive by my beard.

Best regards,
Bart.

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Originally Posted by KristofferBodvin

BTW: A bit of topic.I have a linnen strop that used to have TI paste on it.I scraped of the TI paste and applied chrom ox on top.Recently I read somewhere that this was a big NO NO.I haven't tried the chrom ox on any different medium.But wouldn't this wost case meen that my paste would be a little coarser?
Kristoffer.

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I don't know that it is a BIG no-no it just isn't a common practice, I do know that some people use it and it works just fine (in fact I think Lynn might), also the closet thing I have used myself to that is the Diamond Spray on the hanging felt strop from SRD which works just fine...
I guess that only downside I could see on pasting linen is the probability of applying to much paste :shrug:, I just don't know...
I have heard of people using ash and chalk on linen too, there seem to be tons of tricks all designed to get those last few microns out of the edge...

Ok, I think you got me wrong.What I ment was the mixing of the two different pastes.With the lowest grit paste in the bottom.I think paste work just fine on linnen...


Kristoffer

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Originally Posted by KristofferBodvin

Ok, I think you got me wrong.What I ment was the mixing of the two different pastes.With the lowest grit paste in the bottom.I think paste work just fine on linnen...


Kristoffer

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Soooooooooo that would be yer very own personal, custom, super duper paste formula ????? That if it works fantastic, you will never be able to duplicate :roflmao:roflmao

He he.I didn't really meen to make my own formula.I just got hones that did the job of the TI paste, wanted to test the SRD Chro ox,and didn't have anything to put it on...I'll be damned to paste any of my Tony Miller strops!

Kristoffer