Thread: need to tighten up my edge

i tried hitting my TI razor on my barber hone, the finer stone, about 5 trips and then went to the pasted strop with the HA 0.5 green paste. the razor does not pull per se, but it is not super sharp. any hints on how to get this thing sharper?

sam

Your approaching this correctly....slowly.
Next do the same approach
3 med 5 fine
2 med 5 fine
1 med 5 fine
1 med 5 fine
1 med 5 fine
1 med 5 fine
25 laps on the HA 0.5 paste, clean blade to remove paste then
35 laps plain leather strop
shave

repeat if necessary

If you are using the blue stone as the final stone then increase it from 5 to 10 laps, thats a slow cutting stone. BTW, the Little Devil hone is not a medium hone, it is a coarse stone.

Hope this helps,

I don't know how proficient you are with honing yet, but my underdstanding is that the TI's are a little harder to respond. Your best bet is a honemeister. That said, I haven't gotten to my barber hones yet. I thought it would be simple enough and have spent months getting the feel on the Norton. Hal Wilson seems to be the expert with the barber hones, but I suspect that a fresh pinch of paste and about 50 or 60 laps on that should show some improvement.

X

I haven't experimented much with barber hones either though I have several. I have several TIs and because of the lead hardening process they are a bit more difficult to bring up to snuff. In your situation I would take it to the yellow Corticule or Norton 8K and give it about 30 passes and test and depending on how it does either move on or go back to the 8K and then finish with a 12K stone.

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but wouldn't 30 passes on the 8k smooth out the cuttng fins too much and require a return to the 4k to re-establish the egde?

X

I had a blade that was close and went with Randy's system, and after three try's the razor was keen. It's a really nice way to get an edge safely. I don't understand it, but it works.

Just to remind myself how this mysterious pyramid works, I just used it on a mint Satinedge that needed honing but was quite nice under the microscope. I used 3/5 2/5 1/5 1/5 1/5 on 8k and 15k japanese stones with little or no pressure. Followed it up with 25 passes on 3X15 balsa hone with 0.5 HA green and stropped. It only took one sequence this time.

It's like magic; I swear! Hanging hair snapped with that sweet little ping. Awesome!

Randy's the pyramid man!

Thanks for the compliment and glad it worked for you!

But,.. Lynn Abrams, the founder of this group, is the originator of the pyramid system. I simply grasped what he was saying and put it into writing.

Lynn had been putting it into the responses he gave to people on the Yahoo site. Chaaaz then followed up with a really good post on the pyramid system and I followed after that. The documents need to be updated to give it greater clarity and when to use what. Hopefully I can find time for that soon.

Originally Posted by Korndog

Just to remind myself how this mysterious pyramid works, I just used it on a mint Satinedge that needed honing but was quite nice under the microscope. I used 3/5 2/5 1/5 1/5 1/5 on 8k and 15k japanese stones with little or no pressure. Followed it up with 25 passes on 3X15 balsa hone with 0.5 HA green and stropped. It only took one sequence this time.

It's like magic; I swear! Hanging hair snapped with that sweet little ping. Awesome!

Randy's the pyramid man!

I would agree that the TIs are a little slower to respond. I recently bought two of them and one was shave ready one was not. the "not" one was close though but very slow to respond using just a pasted strop. The first shaves like a dream.

Tony

Originally Posted by finsfan

i tried hitting my TI razor on my barber hone, the finer stone, about 5 trips and then went to the pasted strop with the HA 0.5 green paste. the razor does not pull per se, but it is not super sharp. any hints on how to get this thing sharper?

sam

I don't know what kind of barber hone you have, but it makes a difference. THere are two general types of fine hones: finishing hones and Swaty types (touchup). The difference is how fast they cut. I have afew Tis and when they pull a little I just need afew swipes on the Swaty, then I can go to leather or pasted strops, depending on how much time I have. If you were working with a finishing hone, you would need a lot more strokes, because they cut very slowly.