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

Welcome to SRP! Sounds like you did your homework. Lots of good advice above as well as many points of view. There are no correct answers to your question cause we just don't know for sure. Some of us like the journey and experiment with honing from all angles. Some of us are just interested in the destination, an effortless clean shave. For ma, I am interested in the destination but do experiment from time to time. If I can get an effortless clean shave w/o feeling the hairs the hairs cut and leave the skin where it is I'm there. Polishing the edge on an Escher, C12k or the like gets me to that point. How far you take this is up to you. Journey or destination.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by Joed

Welcome to SRP! Sounds like you did your homework. Lots of good advice above as well as many points of view. There are no correct answers to your question cause we just don't know for sure. Some of us like the journey and experiment with honing from all angles. Some of us are just interested in the destination, an effortless clean shave. For ma, I am interested in the destination but do experiment from time to time. If I can get an effortless clean shave w/o feeling the hairs the hairs cut and leave the skin where it is I'm there. Polishing the edge on an Escher, C12k or the like gets me to that point. How far you take this is up to you. Journey or destination.

Good luck!

I've been meaning to change my signature and this post made me go ahead and pull the trigger.. I'm on of those journey guys

Let us not forget that synthetics also have some variation in the particle size.

I have never tried legions of laps on crox or newspaper. I like the edges from the stones I use. The reason I continue past 8000 is simple: to make it sharper.

I can see that it is getting sharper because every stone I use removes metal which is visible on the surface. coticule and J-nat. I don't have all that many options so there is no time wasted wondering or comparing

Originally Posted by economica

Hi everyone,
......
My question is this: What exactly is the goal when polishing the edge.
......
Thanks.

This has turned into a long thread.
The simple answer is that the goal is a good shave.
Cut whiskers and not cut meat.

Since I had the honour of carving the turkey this year perhaps
addressing the other side of the question (cut meat) might make
some sense.

First the motion is a slicing motion for meat not a pushing motion
as used in shaving.

To carve a roasted bird I like a very fine but slightly toothy edge.

In the kitchen when working on a raw chunk of meat I like a more
polished edge. I find I can get it to slide along tendon and silver skin
and waste less.

On my face I want the edge to slide on skin and cut whiskers.

This link is interesting if dated:
WONDER PHOTOS REVEAL UNSUSPECTED FACTS ABOUT Razor Blades and Shaving