Thread: Leo's Daddy Learns to Hone (picture heavy)

Thanks for starting this thread. Hopefully santa will bring a few stones my way this year and I will take my first shot at honing my gool (lol) dollar razor.

I find building a bevel and sharpening a razor on a Coticule to be way more frustrating than doing it on something like a Norton 4K/8K. Using the Unicot method is awesome, I do it a lot, but it took me a full run on the Norton first to learn a lot about honing and then use those learned skills later, while incorporating Bart's lessons on for the coticule.

I think learning to hone for a new straight user is very difficult, using a coticule only makes it more difficult. Bart is very skilled though and his help should benefit you greatly. I learned a lot from his posts, they're priceless!

Honestly though, just doing a pyramid on a Norton and then testing it should be all you need to hone a razor to get it to shave. If it's not sharp enough just do more pyramids until it is. Once it shaves okay, do some laps on the 8k side until you get a nice shave. I've done this dozens of times with the norton combo and it's the only stone I use to get a good shave. If I want more I use the Naniwa 12k but that's only if I want to spoil myself.

This is my honing routine:

Bevel on DMT-e, or I just do aggressive norton pyramids until arm is shaved.
Norton Pyramids until the arm tests improve.
8K side of the norton about 20 passes.

that's it.

One question: Are you stropping during these processes at all? If so, how much experience with stropping do you have?

Also, magnification is something every new honer should have. It helps you "SEE" things a lot clearer!

Thanks Nick, for your kind words.

The problem with honing is, that it is so much easier to learn when you can sit at the same table, eye to eye with a tutor.

Having shared my experience with Coticules both eye to eye and at long distance, I have noticed that some people really pick it up almost immediately and other people do not. Often, having previous experience with sharpening other tools is more a handicap than an advantage (this was no different for me when I learned to hone razors).

Olafurson is the kind of man that needs to understand what he 's going to do, before he's willing to do it. We both have that in common, although I know post factum, that's exactly the reason why I struggled almost daily for three months before I was finally able to put a decent edge on a razor. But there are some things you cannot change in yourself, so I know it just had to be that way.

Best regards,
Bart.

Three questions:
I thought a DMT was only used to lapp stones?

What is a DMT -e?

What sort of Norton pyramid do you use?

Originally Posted by Disburden

I find building a bevel and sharpening a razor on a Coticule to be way more frustrating than doing it on something like a Norton 4K/8K. Using the Unicot method is awesome, I do it a lot, but it took me a full run on the Norton first to learn a lot about honing and then use those learned skills later, while incorporating Bart's lessons on for the coticule.

I think learning to hone for a new straight user is very difficult, using a coticule only makes it more difficult. Bart is very skilled though and his help should benefit you greatly. I learned a lot from his posts, they're priceless!

Honestly though, just doing a pyramid on a Norton and then testing it should be all you need to hone a razor to get it to shave. If it's not sharp enough just do more pyramids until it is. Once it shaves okay, do some laps on the 8k side until you get a nice shave. I've done this dozens of times with the norton combo and it's the only stone I use to get a good shave. If I want more I use the Naniwa 12k but that's only if I want to spoil myself.

This is my honing routine:

Bevel on DMT-e, or I just do aggressive norton pyramids until arm is shaved.
Norton Pyramids until the arm tests improve.
8K side of the norton about 20 passes.

that's it.

One question: Are you stropping during these processes at all? If so, how much experience with stropping do you have?

Also, magnification is something every new honer should have. It helps you "SEE" things a lot clearer!

The norton pyramids I am speaking of are on the Wiki, you can easily find them there. One is for aggressive honing on a razor that won't shave at all, the other is a conservative pyramid that sharpens and polishes a razor that can already cut arm hair.

The DMT-E is the 1200 grit DMT that is used mostly for setting very fast bevels over slower stones. Bart has been known to use the same DMT to set bevels quickly before approaching the Coticules.

Good day, Gentlemen!

So, I tried it again. Unicot method, Round 2.

One other thing about me that Bart has not yet learned, is I don't easily give up.

For now, I'm going to assume that Bart has chosen the coticule as his honing weapon of choice not just because he lives in Belgium, but because he actually LIKES the darn thing.

My other "advisor" has used many different stones and suggested the coticule as one he thought I would most enjoy. So I'm going to trust those two for now.

I'm gonna make it work, dammit. Even though I know very well my logical brain would probably do better with the Norton setup.

Hmmm.. I guess one could compare honing with a coticule vs. a Norton to shaving with a straight vs. my electric razor. The coticule is more difficult, takes more finesse, longer to learn, less intuitive, fussier... but funner. And awesomer. And more rare, since not as many guys use it as do the Norton setup.

There, I've convinced myself.

I've got a couple of shave-ready razors if all I need is a shave. For now, I'm trying to learn a new skill. So I don't care if it takes me a long time.

Disburden, thank you for your insight.

I ended up doing 15 rounds of 30 passes on slurried coticule, and was fairly convinced that the Wonderedge was shaving arm hair pretty well, so finished up with the rest of the Unicot method as usual.

It was certainly better than last time! Not nearly shave ready, but better. I got a good two passes out of the razor this time and didn't have to resort to a back up razor. Not nearly ready for the ol' ATG though.

I am noticing some hone wear now on the spine (easy to see through the tarnish on this blade!) that parallels what is showing up on the edge - which I guess is the point. My honed edge looked much more even this time - not so many wider and narrower bits.

Better!

Congrats on your progress.

This may seem like a silly question but I could not find this in the wiki.

Lets say you have done your pyramid and you are not happy with the results. Do you do a bevel check or go back to square one? ie run the razor across some glass to dull the edge even further or try and improve on what you already have?

Originally Posted by olafurson

Good day, Gentlemen!

So, I tried it again. Unicot method, Round 2.

I ended up doing 15 rounds of 30 passes on slurried coticule, and was fairly convinced that the Wonderedge was shaving arm hair, so finished up with the rest of the Unicot method as usual.

It was certainly better than last time! Not nearly shave ready, but better. I am noticing some hone wear now that parallels what is showing up on the edge - which I guess is the point. My honed edge looked much more even this time - not so many wider and narrower bits.

Better!

Glad you are making progress! Of course you could just find a barber's hone and call it good

Originally Posted by olafurson

I'm gonna make it work, dammit. Even though I know very well my logical brain would probably do better with the Norton setup.

I can completely relate to this! In some senses, I love being having things work out logically, but there is also a part of me that LOVES the lack of uniformity.

Another thing about the Coti is that you won't be lapping it NEARLY as much as you'll lap those Nortons hehe.

Good to hear that your honing is coming along! It's a heck of a journey, a bit frustrating and discouraging at points, but once you figure out how to get past those spots, it's SO much fun

I have yet to try shaving just off the Coticule, but as said above, a Chinese polisher or even using some CrOx might be all it takes to bring that razor up to the way you want it.

Thats a very very good point, I found when I started Honing that I needed to use 2 pasted stops just about everytime, 1st leather with Dovo Red, then onto leather with Dovo black, finish with plain Canvas and finally leather.

Now I only occasionally use a canvas strop with green Crox. But only if and I mean only if, the edge fails hht AFTER I strop 60 Canvas, 60 leather, sometimes I hone then strop as usual, hht test and then either have to strop again or go crox 10-20 laps, then 40-60 laps on leather, other times I will go straight back onto the stone, (if the edge is proper pants!)then do the 60/60 strop again, but just lately after a few months of regular practice (most days) I dont need to touch the blade after the first stropping session, which is very cool considering most of my razors are restores that I have had to breadknife at the least, and on the worst ones I have had to completely remove the bevel in places.

Keep up the good work Sir, you sound like you are well underway