Thread: know when i'm beaten

well tried honing my first straight this week using a combo 4000/8000 norton waterstone, put what i thought was decent bevel on an ebay special with the 4000 then went to the 8000 to get it ready for stropping except no matter how much i honed on the 8k it wouldn't get sharp enough.

watched jockeys vid on honing and he says he knows when it's ready as it will bite into your finger tip (feels sticky) no such feeling, so am i just not honing for long enough?

BTW i have decided to send it to a honemeister now anyway so i know what i'm trying to achieve but i would certainly like any comments on where i may have been going wrong.

THX in advance fellas

Have you read Lynn's guide?
Pyramid honing guide - Straight Razor Place Wiki

Honing a razor is pretty hard to explain. Its like trying to tell someone how to drive a car through a city by using the internet. The big left turn between 4K street and 8k street isn't marked, no street sign at all.

yeah, i'm sure its something you have to get a feel for and that there is NO substitute for practice AF! just gotta get stuck in and persevere from now on.

thanks for the link to the pyramid honing system Otto, Extremely useful will try again with that in front of me.

looking forward to mastering it and being able to maintain my own razors.

My advise get 1 razor honed and rest try hone your razor and get similar edge .in this case you can compare your honed blade to another shave ready (honed by pro) . this will help a lot.
if you don't know how sharp your razor should be how can you hone and get successful edge? gl

Check out the videos by Lynn here and by heavydutysg135 here. The TNT is the test you want for moving on past the bevel setting. Once you pass the TNT don't use it anymore but go to the TPT.

To get a feel for the TPT a new DE or SE blade is a good thing to practice on IME. Get some old ebay or flea market razors to learn on and as the other fellows have said use your pre honed razor as a bench mark.

Having some sort of magnification, eye loupe, microscope is very helpful as well for evaluating your edge.

If by chance there is a competent honer in your area who will show you first hand what to do that is very beneficial IME.

unfortunately straight razor shaving is all but dead over here in wet old england, rather disappointing really, i have found a guy to hone one for me and the razor has gone in the post this afternoon, should be back with me next week.

very new to this by the way guys so thanks for your comments and support, i'm determined to throw away my gillette cartridge thing forever!

I don't know the geography of the UK but forum member Steve (blueprinciple) is in the UK and has a website here. He knows his way around a razor hone for sure.

Thanks Jimmy, turns out that's exactly who i've sent it to! :-)