Thread: Success - finally!

After many attempts, I'm happy to say that I finally honed my razor to extreme sharpness. It took using the norton 4k until it was sharp enough to shave arm hairs, then polishing on 8k, then 20 laps on the coticule, then 20 laps on a diamond pasted strop, then a horsehide strop, and finally a smooth strop. But now it's the sharpest razor I've ever used!

I learned that the key is not using any pressure - that's what I was doing wrong.

Hopefully I can repeat this marvelous achievement (or was it just dumb luck???)!

Congratulations!!

Pressure (of lack thereof) is indeed VERY important, and the best results are produced when you use the lightest pressure as you possibly can. All razors are slightly different, but if you pulled it off this time, I'm more than sure you can do it again.

Great job!

On the topic of repeatability: what you want to
do is develop a sense of the edge, tests that
you can use to give you an idea of the bevel,
and patience. You won't always be able to take
each razor to the same level of sharpness each
try when you do the shave test, but you should
be able to get any good blade sharp after a few
`shave test/hone as appropriate' cycles.

- Scott

Congrats man! I've only ever honed 3 razors, and the last one gave me problems for days.

Just try to do exactly what you did, and you should have repeat success.

Congrats!! I don't think it is luck, just putting the right things together at the same time. I don't keep a honing log but it does help some people. Keep up the good work.

Well done! You get a fantastic sense of achievement when you get it right for the first time! It makes all the previous frustrations seem worthwhile.

The lack of pressure was my breakthrough moment too. All the advice urges you to keep the pressure light, but you just can't imagine that they mean that light 'till you eventually try it!

I wouldn't necessarily say the success makes it all seem worthwhile - I was getting seriously depressed about not being able to hone. My goal is to keep at it and try and be able to repeat in the future! Then I will be satisfied!

You'll be able to repeat it in the future. Just watch out for bad geometries. Learning to do the magic marker test may help with that. Generally, all blades are pretty easy.

I suggest you buy some more blades and start honing up!

I think it only took me about 100 before I felt like, "Yea, I got the basic idea"

There were quite a few along the way though that just seemed like really hard nuts to crack, and even one I never quite beat.

Congratulations!

Bed.mid staid it right:

The lack of pressure was my breakthrough moment too. All the advice urges you to keep the pressure light, but you just can't imagine that they mean that light 'till you eventually try it!

Pressure. That's still my Achilles heel....