Thread: The goal of polishing the edge?

Hi everyone, I am new to posting in this site but have been reading all of the info contained in the tutorials and threads for a while now; thanks to everyone for all the great info.

My question is this: What exactly is the goal when polishing the edge. After setting the bevel and working with pyramids on the Norton 4/8 my razor shaves pretty good. When polishing with a 12K and inspecting the bevel with my microscope I can clearly see that after only a couple of passes the edge becomes polished i.e. pretty smooth. After a 10-20 passes the entire bevel becomes polished in this way. Is this the goal, or is this going to far? Should I be stopping at a point short of this to retain some of the striations from the lower stone, 8K, in order to maintain some "teeth" to grab the whiskers?

Thanks.

Welcome to SRP. Sounds like you already have a good grasp of honing. Personally I hone up to the 8k level and then test shave. The following day I may polish to improve the feel of the edge. More smooth feeling rather than looking. I don't really pay much attention to the look as much as the feel. Others will no doubt have their own point of view on the subject.

I think the more polished the better, in general. That said, a polished edge does not mean that it will be a good shaver, but I certainly don't see a good polish hurting if the edge is good and sharp. That's exactly why some of us obsess over the perfect finishing stone.

I agree with Jimmy. A smooth shave is the goal. The polish is a means to an end.

+1 on Jimmy's comments. I would add that I would be willing to bet that most smooth shaving edges look pretty well polished under magnification.

Good question. I've thought about this way too much over the past several years. For maximum theoretical sharpness (sharpness for sharpness' sake and nothing more) I've found that polishing bevels to an absurd degree such as going from chrome ox to hundreds of passes on newsprint yields the sharpest edges. This kind of polishing practice yields edges that are as sharp as Feather edges. Edges that with the first few passes down the cheek would make me say "holy crap" out loud.

Here's the trade off though: IME edges from bevels polished to such a keen level don't last that long. They need more to be maintained with more frequency.

Whether it's scientific or holds any water, on a microscopic level, I visualize mirror polished bevels meeting at such an extreme and delicate edge to be weaker than those with some level of striation on the bevels. I think of it this way: If I took a sheet of aluminum foil and folded it in half making a 17 degree wedge and then subjected that edge to impact with some object, the edge would sustain an amount of damage. If I somehow fashioned that same edge in a sheet of foil but added peaks and valleys (striations), in effect creating an appearance similar to an accordion bellows running perpendicular to the edge, I believe the striations would add rigidity to that edge. Again, I could be completely off base with these thoughts but that's they way I have visualized this for some time.

Chris L

Thanks ChrisL

I like that visualization about the accordion bellows, even if it does not jive perfect with the "quantum physics" involved; it does make a lot of sense.

If you could kind of imagine being able to use a grit so high, that it perfectly smoothed the bevel as it comes to the very edge, I mean perfectly flat; it seems that this situation would be right on the very edge of forming a wire edge or over-honing. It would follow logically that this edge would be extremely fragile, whereas the "accordion folds'=striations could somehow be adding a bit of support i.e stability? Anyway, thanks for the mental images; something cool to think about as I look under the scope.

Originally Posted by ChrisL

Good question. I've thought about this way too much over the past several years. For maximum theoretical sharpness (sharpness for sharpness' sake and nothing more) I've found that polishing bevels to an absurd degree such as going from chrome ox to hundreds of passes on newsprint yields the sharpest edges. This kind of polishing practice yields edges that are as sharp as Feather edges. Edges that with the first few passes down the cheek would make me say "holy crap" out loud.

Here's the trade off though: IME edges from bevels polished to such a keen level don't last that long. They need more to be maintained with more frequency.

Whether it's scientific or holds any water, on a microscopic level, I visualize mirror polished bevels meeting at such an extreme and delicate edge to be weaker than those with some level of striation on the bevels. I think of it this way: If I took a sheet of aluminum foil and folded it in half making a 17 degree wedge and then subjected that edge to impact with some object, the edge would sustain an amount of damage. If I somehow fashioned that same edge in a sheet of foil but added peaks and valleys (striations), in effect creating an appearance similar to an accordion bellows running perpendicular to the edge, I believe the striations would add rigidity to that edge. Again, I could be completely off base with these thoughts but that's they way I have visualized this for some time.

Chris L

Did you steal all this from my Brain? lol
You are exactly right Chris L

Interesting. So Yamashta likens J-nat edges to shark teeth in that they don't break all at once. He accounts for it in the slight grit size variation compared to synthetics. Could be something in it.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

Interesting. So Yamashta likens J-nat edges to shark teeth in that they don't break all at once. He accounts for it in the slight grit size variation compared to synthetics. Could be something in it.

I remember reading that on his site also. In otherwords the randomness of the particle sizes in a Japanese natural stone produce a more durable edge. Something to ponder over.