Thread: Intentionally dulling a razor

I think there is a little problem with dulling razor term and while sharpening razor taking the small chips out.
If you are sharpening blade every lower grit stone leaves some small chips by doing bread knifing you can take that small chips away. example
if you are setting bevel 1k at the end of it you will have small saw tooths.
by breadknifing you can take them out and move to next grit stone what ever it is.
example 2 k.
after 2k you can do same process.
I am not sure about after 8 k or 16 k i have checked edge after 8/16k never seen any small saw tooths anymore.
you can see them after coticule use very small one.
You will never seen saw tooth after Escher or good Nakayama.
This system i understand and believe so it will work
In the other hand if you don't take saw tooths out by Breadknifing high grit stones norton 8 k level they basically gone.
Now about Dulling edge. I don't understand what is the purpose of it.
if you get used blade and there is chip by dulling the edge you are not taking out chip . you just dull whole length of the edge?
why someone does that i don't know.
what do you achieve doing it no idea.
are there any benefits no idea.
GL

Originally Posted by hi_bud_gl

Now about Dulling edge. I don't understand what is the purpose of it.
if you get used blade and there is chip by dulling the edge you are not taking out chip . you just dull whole length of the edge?
why someone does that i don't know.
what do you achieve doing it no idea.
are there any benefits no idea.
GL

The idea behind it is that the edge will be uniformly dull rather than sharp here and there. An inexperienced honer might get it feeling sticky in a spot or too with a TPT and say to himself that I am okay to move on to the 4/8 or whatever.

By uniformly dulling the edge he won't fool himself thinking he is making progress when he still needs to be on the bevel setter. Chips have nothing to do with it. Micro chips are another issue.

I may be mistaken in the above statement. I am not advocating the method or speaking against it. I believe that was the intention behind it. A honer can try it and see how they like it or not.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

The idea behind it is that the edge will be uniformly dull rather than sharp here and there. .

person who hones the razor usually need to check sharpness all parts of the blade. Not just in 1,2 spots.
Simple-- Person has to know feeling of the TPT off 1 k. IF he knows this it shouldn't be any problem.
IF we dull blade or not any way we have to go to 1 k set the bevel (in most cases). TPT (or microscope) you can find out where is the edge?

From what I have read dulling on glass would do no harm. It simply prevents a false positive at setting, as stated iirc when Bart first described its use.

Jointing is slightly different. I think Sham described it quite well.

It may not occur on all razors with all honing methods, but I do feel that chips beget chips. By lightly polishing the edge it is possible to achieve a similar result as is necessary when honing single bevels- the back side must be flat, high polish. When the bevels meet there are no residual nicks or scratches or hanging burs to interfere.

It would take a fairly long time to establish if such a practice leads to a longer lasting edge. As well, finishing on pasted strops may eliminate any advantage.

I think that last point is crucial, to evaluate any honing method or stone you have to eliminate the paste effect, or you are only evaluating the paste effect.

Originally Posted by kevint

From what I have read dulling on glass would do no harm. It simply prevents a false positive at setting, as stated iirc when Bart first described its use.

Jointing is slightly different. I think Sham described it quite well.

It may not occur on all razors with all honing methods, but I do feel that chips beget chips. By lightly polishing the edge it is possible to achieve a similar result as is necessary when honing single bevels- the back side must be flat, high polish. When the bevels meet there are no residual nicks or scratches or hanging burs to interfere.

It would take a fairly long time to establish if such a practice leads to a longer lasting edge. As well, finishing on pasted strops may eliminate any advantage.

I think that last point is crucial, to evaluate any honing method or stone you have to eliminate the paste effect, or you are only evaluating the paste effect.

Kevin, IIUC you're saying that flat honing to get micro .... stressing micro chips out is a more desirable and say efficient method in the long run ? If that is what you are saying it is the conclusion I have come to as well after trying it both ways. To me a true BKing is a last resort kind of thing.

" By lightly polishing the edge it is possible to achieve a similar result as is necessary when honing single bevels- the back side must be flat, high polish. When the bevels meet there are no residual nicks or scratches or hanging burs to interfere"

I am only suggesting that by creating a small flat on the edge via breadknife jointing stroke(s) there may be some benefit which is similar to the process of single bevel sharpening.

As a beginner to straight shaving I am not saying I have figured it out. I have some parameters set out that I hope will help me continue to learn those aspects most important to me. Mainly; long lasting, high performance edges.

At this point I cannot imagine using a different tool, or of a no need to shave scenario developing, so I am in it forever.

There might be cases when an ever so light pass over a very fine stone could refine and help eliminate some microchips. But if your edge is falling apart all the time, the bigger question IMHO is why is that happening in the first place? I don't see how putting deep scratches lengthwise is going to help anything at all unless you hone them off, then what did you accomplish?
Mike

One more thing,I don't consider a smooth shaving blade microchipped. I think this term is IMHO often misunderstood and over used. When your honing skills are world class and your steel is to, your product is within some margin of era the best it can be.
M

As far as I know, "jointing" is a term that originates from the world of industrial woodworking machinery. Many woodworking machines (jointers, planers, spindle moulders, etc...) use rotating cutter heads. Such a cutter head is equipped with 2, 3 or 4 knives. "Jointing" is a process were all knives in one cutter head are precisely ground to the same height. This serves two functions: 1. it equalizes the amount of wood cut by each knife in the head, maximizing efficiency and tool life. 2. Because the cutter head removes wood in a circular trajectory, natural dulling leads to a negative cutting angle. By pre-dulling (jointing) the knives in a precisely controled manner, this is prevented. It largely improves the time-before-resharpening.

I don't see where "jointing" could add anything meaningfull to a straight razor. Both premises for jointing (multiple blades and a circular trajectory) do not apply to straight razors.

In that, I agree with Ron. Dulling or jointing accomplishes nothing.

I only came up with it, to uncomplicate matters for honing newbies. In the majority of cases where honing rookies send me a razor they could not get in order themselves, the razor has not a good bevel. David Polan (Heavydutysg135) already came to that same conclusion much earlier.
Often they have honed a bit on this, honed a bit on that, stropped a bit on paste, had a mediocre test shave, tried more honing on the finisher, had another frustrating test shave, tried a vigorous double stropping session on CrO (which only rounds the bevel further), and finally they throw the towel after an even worse test shave. This razor shaves arm hair, it passes the TNT and TPT. Yet it pulls like hell. The marker test, if performed well with a water resistant marker, could show up the problem. A trained eye could even spot it when inspecting the way the light reflects of the bevel faces. But when helping out a newbie per e-mail, I rather be sure. So I'll advice him to rub the razor over a beer bottle and start working on his bevelsetting hone till the razor shaves arm hair along the entire edge.
Dulling on glass won't set you back more than a limited amount of strokes on a bevelsetter. If it takes longer, that only means that there was more work to start with.
Once the aspiring honer turns up with a shaving bevel after dulling on glass, the rest is generally a piece of cake.

The Unicot (One Coticule) honing method starts with it, because I aimed this method to the inexperienced straight razor honer. I can't think of a more simple way to put a good bevel on a razor and be sure about it. The rest of the method only works on a perfected bevel, so it seemed a good starting point.
But the dulling by itself won't have any influence on the finished edge. It is only a matter of didactics.

Someone who hones his own razors and exaclty knows their condition, might never need this option. But I often don't know anything about the razor and it takes me less time than performing a marker test. Call me lazy.


Sincerely,

Bart.

Nope: Jointing in this instance refers simply to straight-lining, flatting