Thread: A honing and shaving epiphany ......Finally

Tonight I took a Wester Bros Manganese steel that I got off of the bay for the princely sum of nine bucks shipped and honed it up. The razor is overall in good shape but the edge had some micro chipping and was as dull as they come.

I fooled with setting the bevel on a coticule with slurry and after 200 laps I decided to experiment with that another day and got my DMT 1200 and cleaned up the chips and set the bevel in short order.

I got on the Norton 4/8 doing an aggressive pyramid and went through that , The edge was getting there but not there yet so I did another aggressive pyramid. I took it into the bathroom and grabbed a hair out of my hairbrush to see if the thing would pass HHT. Nope. Stropped 50 and 50 and still no HHT but the edge was popping hairs off of my leg to beat the band.

Here is where the epiphany comes. I knew from the way the razor popped hair I would get a fine shave out of it. Then it occurred to me that the reason Randydance was always telling me to test shave off of the 8k was because if it needed to be sharper there was no point in going up in grit.

If it needed to be sharper I needed to go back down to the 4k......DUH ! Took me a year to figure out what I was told here back in April of '08 and over and over for months since. Not a quick study. I shaved and it was a good shave. The razor could be sharper and smoother so I will take it back to the 4/8 and tune it up a bit. Test shave and if it is good enough go to a higher grit and test shave again and go from there.

From the start of my honing I had a 4/8 and a Swaty and added a Shapton 15k soon after so I always went right to the finishers and never tried shaving off of the 8k except for once maybe a month ago again at Randy's suggestion. Got a good shave then but I still didn't get the point until tonight.

So, if I understand you correctly, the epiphany is...
Do what Randy tells you to do!

Glad you got the point Jimmy!
For some reason we ( that includes me) became enamored of the higher grit hones. Our search for the perfect edge led us to put to much emphasis on them thinking that they would make up for doing to little work on the lower grit hones.

The basics still hold true.

The all important bevel must be developed first. It is the foundation of a shaving edge. That should be finished by the end of the 4K hone. If not and you jump to a finer stone then your just spinning your wheels, wasting time and getting frustrated with almost no chance of developing a shaving edge.

A shaving edge should be attainable by the end of the 8K hone. If not then go back to the 4K/6K./8K. Stay there until it shaves you very well.

Then refine your edge with your choice of weapons. Coticule, Escher, Shapton, Naniwa, Ch12K, pastes etc.

Most of you guys already know this stuff, I am just repeating it here again for the new guys.

Hope this helps,

Yep, if it doesn't cut arm or leg hair at several different places along the length of the edge coming off the 4 k don't go to a higher grit until it does. I am sure this is the main cause of honing frustration as well as too much pressure.

Also, test shaving off the 8k is a good idea. Ya don't need to shave your whole face off the 8k even though it would be a good shave. Those of us that use polishing hones may be spoiled and not like the feel but it was the way I finished my edges for several months until the finer hones found a home with me.

Other signs to look for are changes to the sound while honing and watch for when the water runs up the blade for it's entire length. The water running up the blade has replaced the TNT and TPT tests for me and is a good sign on all hones.

Here's something I 've calculated a while a go.
DMT-EE: 3 micron - speed ratio: 1
DMT-E: 9 micron - speed ratio: 27 (in one [9 micron]³ fit 3X3X3=27 [3 micron]³)
DMT-F: 25 micron - speed ratio: 512 (in one [24 micron]³ fit 8X8X8=512 [3 micron]³)
DMT-C: 45 micon - speed ratio: 3375 (in one [45 micron]³ fit 15X15X15=3375 [3 micron]³)

It's overly simplified, but still helps me to grasp why 1 minute of neglected work on one hone, takes half an hour to correct during the next stage, and becomes an absurd task on all other stages thereafter.
I a razor obviously lacks keenness during the test shave, doing more work on the finishing hone doesn't help. It's either back to a previous stage, or going to an abrasive strop, that changes the rules by adding some convexity.

Thanks for this post...
'

This is going to help me a lot.

When you shave off the 8k, are you just testing to see if it cleanly shaves whiskers on the cheek WTG or are you mixing in some ATG to see if it pulls?

Hmmphf, you younguns have it easy Back in the old days we used to shave off the 8k all the time, and we liked it. Coticules and Eschers at a whopping 10k grit were the high-grit polishers, assuming you could find them on ebay and beat the snipes.

Originally Posted by mparker762

Hmmphf, you younguns have it easy Back in the old days we used to shave off the 8k all the time, and we liked it. Coticules and Eschers at a whopping 10k grit were the high-grit polishers, assuming you could find them on ebay and beat the snipes.

Shave off the 8k???!!!

And then somebody discovered green paint

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

Thanks for this post...
'

This is going to help me a lot.

When you shave off the 8k, are you just testing to see if it cleanly shaves whiskers on the cheek WTG or are you mixing in some ATG to see if it pulls?

It should definitely handle WTG on both the cheeks and chin area. For me it also has to pass ATG.

In all seriousness, the 8K is more than adequate to obtain a super sharp edge. It just will not be as comfortable as a polished edge.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

Thanks for this post...
'

This is going to help me a lot.

When you shave off the 8k, are you just testing to see if it cleanly shaves whiskers on the cheek WTG or are you mixing in some ATG to see if it pulls?

Once I lather up I do the whole shave as usual. That's just me, you can do it any way that you want. Usual for me is WTG for the first pass and then a combination of XTG and ATG depending on what works best. If it pulled I would probably abort the mission and bring it back to the hone immediately.

I can tell by the nature of the hair popping on my leg whether I will get a good shave. I don't find the shave off of the 8k uncomfortable at all. At least not the two times I have tried it. I will be trying it a lot more with various blades so I'm sure there will be some that are better then others.