Thread: Honing with ceramic rod.

I know this might sound stupid, but I tried honing a straight razor with a ceramic rod and it works.

I was about to throw away several Pakistani razors that I got when I first got interested in straight razors. (It's the kind of mistake I made before I knew better.) These razors are junk, they are crooked, can't lie flat on the hone, and they wobble when you try to hone them. I could never get them sharp for the life of me.

Anyway, just before throwing them away, i thought that I would try one last time to get the razors sharp.

I took a ceramic rod that I use for kitchen knives, and started to run the razor across the ceramic rod, keeping the spine and edge of the razor against the ceramic rod at all times.

To my surprise, the razor got sharp, not scary sharp, but sharp enough to shave with. The scratch pattern is about the same as I would get with a 1200 grit stone, but it was enough to shave with. And it gave me a reason not to throw the Pakistani razors away.

I'm now thinking of getting finer grit ceramic rods to see if I can get better results. I have several old Wade & Butcher's that just won't like flat on the hone, and I think this could be the answer.

This might just be another stupid idea, but any comments and suggestions are welcome.

I'll post the results when I get the finer grit ceramic rods. Who knows, this might work, and the ceramic rods are way lighter and easier to store than the normal hones.

Wow. Probably the rods enabled you to get contact with all parts of the edge (since you said they were warped razors). I guess the question is if you had a flat razor, could you get a comparable shave with the rods vs. a flat hone-- sounds like a good experiment to run!

-Chief

I'm very interested to see how this turns out! Kudos for thinking outside the box!

A cylindrical hone is definitely the most narrow hone a person can use, period. Since the razor is contacting the cylinder at only two points (bevel and spine), in theory it's the best tool to use to ensure that the most defective of razors receives equal contact on the hone.

I know others have experimented with honing on cylinders as have I. Rather than honing on ceramic rods, I used some wood dowels over which I placed different grit 3M abrasive film both the PSA versions and also using a thin layer of rubber cement for the non-PSA (Pressure Sensitive Adhesive backed film). My results echoed yours. However, the problems I had were at the higher grits all the way up to .5 micron. Personally, I could not get edges honed on cylinders as nice to shave with as I could using flat hones/surfaces. Why? I'm not sure. Part of the challenge with cylinders and the fact that the entire blade is only contacting the cylinder at two points meaning there has to be a much greater load or force at the contact points. Would this cause deflection at the edge when honing hollow ground razors? I do recall that I did not experiment with heavy wedges using this method. I stopped the experiment and went on to other things. I'm not discounting this method since I found it has merit in the fact that you can ensure both bevels on both sides of the razor easily and automatically made contact the entire length of the edge no matter how defective, wavy, warped, twisted a razor might be.

Chris L

Interesting, you might be the first person to actually successfully shave with a Pakistani razor. I wonder if a smooth sharpening steel would work to finish the blade? Not the kind with ridges but one that is totally smooth.

I have actually tried using the triangular rods in the Spyderco knife sharpening kit. Strangely enough, they worked quite well given their limitations. In a pinch you can use these to polish up an edge. I think the white ones are about the same as a barbers hone.

Ray

My question is, what the long-term effects of cylindrical hones on razors could be. I can imagine all sorts of problems arising (uneven removal of material from spine or bevel leading to wavy spines and edges etc.).

Hopefully Randydance will see this, IIRC it was him that did this experiment in the past....
I think he said he got some fairly good results but I'll let him explain it if he finds this..

I have a couple of barber hones that I've turned into rounded-top hones for similar purposes. I just lapped them more on the sides than the middle until there was a roughly 1/8" hump running down the length of the hone. Their only use is honing warped razors, but they're good for that. A steady and consistent X pattern helps keep the wear distributed evenly.

You can also lap the sides of your favorite hone with a slightly rounded profile and hone on that. Unless you're using a combo hone or a glassstone, of course. If you want a high-grit ceramic "rod" then do this to the side of a Spyderco UF. Use a powered sander...

In my view, using a cylindrical hone isn't really any different than using a rolling X pattern on a flat hone. You're reducing the razor to hone contact area to compensate for imperfections in the blade.