Thread: Desperate Honesterette

Originally Posted by 0livia

Thank you Leighton, that was the desired result.

OK, more time on the higher grit hones!
Henckels 8000 behaved well (without anomalies) today, too, after I lapped it once more.

How (what equipment) did you take the pics of your edges?

I usually have to do things the hard way. I used a 20x BelOmo loupe for the close up shots and a 10x for the distant shots. The only 10x shots are of the DAs though. I just held the camera up to the loupe and snapped a picture. For lighting I used my Ott lite lamp I use for reading law books and a mag lite LED. Took the focuser off.

Not sure if I mentioned it, but the Nani 12k left a really good polish and the 16k left scratch marks. Very uniform and small, but still there. The UF and cerium seem to have removed them all though.

Yes, If the blade is oily such as when you strop (the strop has oil in it) and then “wipe” the blade before you look at it, oily streaks will distort the view… that may be the horizontal streaks you see in the other photo.


This photo looks better now.

Ok, thats what I thought. Those camera pics are better than the ones from cheap microscopes I think.

Smythe I've oiled it even myself but forgot.
Strop was innocent this time.

Now I have shaved a leg I'm very happy with the Henckels, but the stainless sux.
Off to the hones with it again! Nitpicking weekend, LOL

When I experimented honing steel washers, I found:
Some hones leave a matte finish;
Some leave a shiny but non-mirror finish;
Some leave a shiny, mirror finish.

The odd thing is, there was no correlation between the grit rating and how shiny or mirrored the finish was.

So I don't think you can compare two blades honed by two different people using different hones and try to tell which is best based on how shiny they look.

That´s absolutely correct Rajagra.
But what would have worried me instead of the little scratch marks that indeed don´t tell a story about the shaving quality,
would be the slightly jagged edge, that I get sometimes on my blades
as well.
Under slightly higher magnification it could be seen these spots
were fold overs. Now what I don´t see on the him picture
(I am referring to the first set of his/her because I think the second set does focus on the face and not the very edge itself)
are these spots or the "jaggyness".
Did anyone else have experiences with those spots on the very edge?
Everytime I spottet those I could definetely tell thos were about to shave bad
when used against the grain (wich would be the most sensitive part for my shaving)
Blades with those fold overs tend do grab the skin ATG.
When removed, like I accomplished on my TI Bijou de France
it shaved like a dream in any direction.
The face btw. was still slightly scratched

When I take a look under my mik or loupe and see a highly polished edge
I feel kind of happy but at the same time I know
this thing could still hardly shave.
That´s why I take a look at the very edge and check for light dissortions
produced by wire edges or fold over burrs.
And I think that´s exactly what can be seen in the first "her" photo.

So why do these appear?
After talking to Bartisto about a blade that I was thorugh with
and asking him to have a look at it
he tolde me he had difficulties with exactly these blades before.

He told me the structural integrity of the steel used in the blade was highly
insufficiant. That forced him to stop at a 5.000 grit Naniwa Stone.
That´s exactly the grit size this blade started to produce this kind of burr when I honed it.
He than had to move on to a pasted strop with chromium and iron oxide
and had to be very gently to be able to produce an edge
that was STABLE! So it was not about polishing the edge
but about choosing the right hones to achieve a nice edge.

I will send him my razor this week and let him have a look at it.
He will tell me what he did and if the razor had the same problems
as the two previous had, or if it was only me and my honing

Originally Posted by 0livia

Now I have shaved a leg I'm very happy with the Henckels, but the stainless sux.

I think you proved the point that appearance under the scope does not correlate with the shave exactly.

That said, when I am finishing a razor I have a coticule, the butterscotch hone, the "Olivia Hone", a Nakayama from O_S and a nakayama from 330mate (via ZethLent) on the table within reach. (I hone on the ping pong table).

I then move between the hones to see which gets me the finish under 100x with no visible scratches. It seems to be a function of both blade and hone. I can often get that kind of finish from multiple hones, but sometimes just one does the job. I know now that it probably doesn't make a big (or any) difference, but I like to know I can do it. I usually finish on the hone that does it.

Someone mentioned a "black bevel" being indicative of a good polish. So, having so much free time on my hands *cough*, I decided I'd try and capture what this fellow *might* have been talking about.

Tell me if I'm on the right track. I just thought it might be cool to capture what I see when looking through a loupe sometimes. And I was looking for something different to stick in my sig. :P

http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/t...ackedge-01.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/t...ackedge-02.jpg

If a shiny bevel looks black under the mike it is in the shade.

Originally Posted by Leighton

Someone mentioned a "black bevel" being indicative of a good polish. So, having so much free time on my hands *cough*, I decided I'd try and capture what this fellow *might* have been talking about.

Tell me if I'm on the right track. I just thought it might be cool to capture what I see when looking through a loupe sometimes. And I was looking for something different to stick in my sig. :P

http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/t...ackedge-01.jpg
http://i615.photobucket.com/albums/t...ackedge-02.jpg

What scale are they at? Are we just looking at the bevel? If so there seems to be something going on at the very edge, like a secondary microbevel. Or it could be an artifact from in-camera sharpening. Hard to say as I've never taken a picture that clearly at that magnification.

Pictures taken at 10x, and I zoomed in a little with the camera, so the crispness isn't as good as it could be.