Thread: Shaving off of 8K

Ok, guys. I've seen a lot of people ask about the finishing stones available to us, and I think the consensus is that they are nice options but not necessary. That's my opinion as well as others that I've seen. I would like to have this thread out there dedicated to helping people understand that when you've done a good job of honing, you can shave comfortably off of the 8K stone. My most recently honed razor is a no name 3/8 3/4 grind that came to me stone blunt... Off to test shave the 8K edge now

I'm a late night shaver some of the time as well. I like to shave off of the 8k just to make sure that I've done a good job up to that level. With my particular skin/whiskers I can get a smooth comfortable shave at the 8k level. Usually the following day or so,assuming I was happy with the shave, I'll go up in grit and see how much polishing will improve the shave. It does improve it BTW.

If you don't get a good edge off the 8k you won't be able to improve on it much with finer stones.

Over in the knife forum they talk about this a lot. You should almost be able to shave your arms with a course stone. Once you can do that you can improve on the edge.

It seems a lot of people here see anything above 8k as a luxury. I tend to agree.

Yes, Ziggy, we say the same here. It seems to be agreed that one should be able to shave arm hair easily off a 1k. That's how I know I'm done on the 1k at least...

I've not shaved off anything known to be 8k, but I have shaved quite comfortably off my BBW and my Dragon's Tongue. I've heard their grits estimated at 6-8k.

Hear Hear !!!

Huge plus 1 from me as well...

So holli, by that standard would you think it should be possible to shave off a 4K? I ask only because I have a few dull razors needing a hone and my few shave-ready blades beginning to approach dull, but only own a 1K and 4K, and am unable to buy anything higher for a few weeks. Nor do I own a pasted strop to touch them up with, so unless people think it possible to shave off a 4K I may have to revert to a Mach36.9 for a few weeks until I can afford an 8K and possibly a C12K for that final polish.

Unless you have a face of steel, and the hand of a neurosurgeon I wouldn't recommend it. That would be one rough shave. I've shaved off a Japanese 6k and that was bad enough. It seems like 8k is the lower limit for comfort.

I've shaved off of a 1k and gotten bbs shaves. Not the most comfortable thing in the world to do but when you're desperate to shave with a straight you'll do anything necessary.

Originally Posted by ziggy925

If you don't get a good edge off the 8k you won't be able to improve on it much with finer stones.

Over in the knife forum they talk about this a lot. You should almost be able to shave your arms with a course stone. Once you can do that you can improve on the edge.

It seems a lot of people here see anything above 8k as a luxury. I tend to agree.

When I sharpen my knives, I know I have set the bevel on 1k only if it can shave arm hair. Only then I move up in the grits.
Same applies to razors. Glen has tested face shaving off 1k stone and the results were pretty good.

I'll say another +1 for shaving off of 8k.

Totally doable, and as others have mentioned, you should even be able to do it at lower grits than that .

When I started as a newbie (which really wasn't so long ago...), I used my C12k and a CrOx pasted "strop" (piece of oak backed plywood okay ) as aids to make up for poor skills. I was really shocked when a month or two later, the results straight off of the 8k side of my Norton were better than the results with all that extra "stuff."

As insane as I thought it was wen I kept hearing guys say that you should be able to get the razor to pass the HHT at 1k, I even found out that too was not impossible. I didn't try to shave off it though; I'm a bit spoiled these days .