Thread: Finishing a Stainless steel razor as opposed to a carbon steel one..

Hey guys,

Do you guys find that SS razors like a Dovo SS #41 reacts differently to certain types of finishing?

For example would you say that your SS razor likes the finish off a coticule better than off a pasted strop for example?

cheers,

Dups

I have got excellent results on my own stainless blades by finishing them off on my Spyderco Ultrafine hone .These blades have all responded well to this hone.Hope this helps .PaUL

With my stainless blades, I like to go from the BBW straight to a thuringian. Sometimes i'll use the coticule with just water, but not that often. All my blades go over the pasted strop, stainless or otherwise, but this gets less as my honing improves.

I'll use either the Coticule or my vintage Escher depending on the particular razor. I have a Dovo 41 and I use the Coticule on it.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I'll use either the Coticule or my vintage Escher depending on the particular razor. I have a Dovo 41 and I use the Coticule on it.

So, do you follow the coticule with some Cr0 or diamond paste? How many passes on the coticule do you typically do?

thanks a lot!

JF

Hey Dups,

I have a stainless Friodur on the way, and will be in the same proverbial boat as you are in a couple months once it needs a touch-up. Anyway, I'd try light passes on the coticule in increments of 10 and test. If it only requires a touch-up I don't think 50 laps would be out of the ordinary (if I understand Bart correctly). Try a test shave and if you think the edge needs a little extra or some smoothing hit it with some laps of chrome and see how the shave goes.

Thanks Ryan!

I'm wondering if I should stick with the coticule approach or finish off on some cr0. I know different razors react differently to different finishing methods so.

Let us know when you get the friodur!

I don't really make a difference between stainless steel (SS) and high carbon steel (HCS). It is reported by reputed sources that SS is a bit more wear (and abrasion) resistant than HCS. That would influence the number of laps it can take on a hone. But I don't think it's significant, because:

1. Different manufacturers use different heat treatment methods, resulting in a variety of hardness/sturdiness ratios. I think this is more important than the actual alloy.

2. Different grinds lead to different bevel widths. Wider bevels spread out the honing pressure over a bigger surface, making it less effective. This too, influences the number of laps and I guess this can also be contributing more to the equation than the actual alloy.

So far, in my honing practice, I have not found any empirical rules that can be formulated towards SS versus HRC alloys.

In my mindset about honing, finishing is not problematic. I do 20-100 laps (depending on the previous hone) on a Coticule with water. That has never failed me. After finishing I always strop 60 laps on clean leather, and sometimes I perform 5 laps on a CrO pasted strop, and strop again. (I have a fairly strict routine for first time stropping, that relies on a method for checking efficiency of the stropping session, but this would lead this post too far.)
What I often do find problematic, is the part before the finishing. Getting the edge keen enough. Bevelsetting may be the more complicated part of honing, once you understand the rules and methods to tackle certain problems, getting a decent bevel on a razor is a matter of doing the work.
But making a good bevel sharp enough before finshing it for more smoothness, is still sometimes an elusive activity. Some razors accept the keenness I try to imply upon them with lenience, while others do not. It would be so easy if this could be reduced to a matter of alloys, but I don't think that will ever be possible.

One way to deal with edges that refuse to take the keenness I'm after, is to rely on pasted strops. However, that rules out my beloved Coticule for finishing, and it has always introduced longevity issues in combination with my beard, so I decided long time ago, to stay away from it.

A second method to have another shot at sharpness, is to cut a narrow secondary bevel. The advantage is, that you can use very fine hones for it, or even the finishing hone directly, that under all other circumstances lack the power for serious keenification. The resulting microbevel offers a whole new shot at finding the desired level of keenness, and it still can be finished with whatever hone you wish to try. Before I used this as a (last) resort, I had to accept that some of my razors would become only so sharp. With the addition of this method to my arsenal of honing options, I have managed to push some razors to a performance level where I like them better.

But the bottom line is, that the used method is always dictated by events during honing and testing, and never by the alloy of the blade.

Hope this makes sense,
Bart.

Hey Bart,

Great post!

when you say secondary bevel..do you mean sort of a double bevel? adding an extra layer of tape on the fine hones?

thanks,

JF

Originally Posted by Dups

Hey Bart,

Great post!

when you say secondary bevel..do you mean sort of a double bevel? adding an extra layer of tape on the fine hones?

thanks,

JF

Yes, it uses 2 layers of tape.
It sometimes happens that I'm completely confident having set a good bevel, did everything in my power refining that bevel to maximum keenness, finished it well... and still the razor is lacking in the sharpness department, during the test shave. (note that I am still talking about a razor that shaves reasonably well).
In such cases I might opt for a double bevel. I add 2 layers of tape, on rare occasions 3 (if I think the edge is a bit weak at the same time) and I perform about 20 laps on a Naniwa Chosera 10K. You could use any synthetic hone of 8K and above or even do it directly on a Coticule with water (the Coticule behaves partially like when it's used with slurry, so don't expect ulterior keenness off it). I always use the Chosera first and finish the secondary bevel with the Coticule. This is the reason why I make the secondary bevel wider than strictly necessary: it needs to be wide enough to reach the point where the hone slows down, so the subsequent finishing Coticule doesn't rapidly eats the steel and implies its own sharpness limitations. (I have pointed out the paradox in earlier posts on SRP, that you can polish edges with a Coticule that are keener than the Coticule can produce on its own)
Another advantage of making the secondary bevel not too small, is that you have a higher chance of reaching the maximum keenness that you can squeeze out of the hone that builds it. In a way, you're building a miniature bevel, with a hone, that's so slow and fine, that you could otherwise never use to build a bevel with.

I don't use it a lot, because you need to keep track of it and reattach the tape for touching up the razor. (Stropping on a hanging strop works well without the tape). But as a last resort, it often works well for getting a blade in line.

It may be more complicated to explain, but I prefer this method over convexing the bevel on a pasted strop, which is actually very similar from geometric viewpoint.

Bart.