Thread: Low grit ??

Originally Posted by Bart

I believe you have received good advice so far. It's very difficult to pinpoint from a distance what exactly poses the problem with someone's honing.

It is possible that you fail somewhat on the 4K. The edge of a 1K hone will sever hair rather well. Such an edge carries little teeth that penetrate the shaft of a hair with ease, a bit in the same fashion as a serrated knife cuts tomatoes that much better than a smooth-edged knife of comparable keenness. The problem with shaving is that we want to cut whiskers but at the same time do as little damage as possible to the underlying skin. Hence the edge must be finer than that.
Upon refining your edge on a 4K, the first thing that happens, is that the teeth are honed away, because they reside at the outer limit of the very edge. That explains while the blade will start to appear duller very soon after you start honing on the 4K. But that doesn't mean you are at the maximum keenness level on the 4K.
I also think it's important to remove the 1K sandpaper scratches completely on the 4K before doing anything else.
I don't think Lynn's adage of "less is more" applies to achieving a good bevel. Even if the bevel is sharp enough, having the remains of 1K scratches underneath your 8K & 12K pattern, can get you into trouble. I think "overhoning" is sometimes just that: low level scratches that interfere with a good continuous apex at the finished edge.
The bottom line is: you need an extremely sharp edge off the 4K, that shaves arm hairs with absolute ease. If I understand any of it, it takes only few laps on the 8K (or a pyramid) to add some shaving comfort to that edge.

I think it is important to make the final laps on each hone very light and uniform.

this is exactly what i was thinking as i had this problem a while back and it may have been one of Bart's post that i read. after i started to spend more time and attention on the 4k hone things started going much better. i hone on the 4k until it pops hairs off the arm with ease and then i refine on the 8k with about 100 laps or so.

the other thing that you might want to look out for and the reason i bought a 1k stone is that off the paper the edge may be slightly 'rolled' so to speak as the paper can bunch with each stroke just a tiny bit. this is something i read and it seems was happening when i used 1k paper. all this means is that you might need to spend some extra time on the 4k to flatten out the bevel, which it sounds like won't be a bad idea anyways

More laps on the 4k produced great results !

The method of Bart will be added to my bag of tricks.

Thanks for the input ! I really do appreciate it ... and my face appreciates it as well lol.