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

Back luck on the scales Mate.

ok I know very very little about synthectics but heres what I do.

1, a coti with water will polish the edge as smooth as any other finisher, and will easily refresh a dulling (starting to pull) edge
2, a coti with slurry will cut as fast as a 1k, for real!
3, A yellow coti used both with slurry and water, and of course the right techniques will take you from a breadknifed edge through to the sharpest smoothest edge you could desire. however for real heavy work a 400/1000 is what I use, once the bevel is set enough to pass tnt then I am on to the coti all the way. I very very rarely use the BBW side of my beautiful stone, as I find I simply do not need it.

Seriously as said before in this thread, if you start with a sharp razor, draw the edge over a glass then follow Barts technique for the unicot method, you will have the finest smoothest shaving egde you could wish for, Honestly a 12 yr old with no experience could do it with the proper guidance.

Again I ask you to please just try it? it will take you an hour tops and give you a very simple straightforward method of getting a Razor very shave ready, what do you have to lose?

Best wishes and good luck, its a wonderful adventure that you have embarked on Greg

Originally Posted by tat2Ralfy

Again I ask you to please just try it? it will take you an hour tops and give you a very simple straightforward method of getting a Razor very shave ready, what do you have to lose?

Here's my problem with the physics/geometry of the Unicot aka double bevel method. What happens when my razor gets dull again? I can't just take it to the coticule with no tape and touch up the first bevel, because only the second bevel has been doing the actual cutting. Fixing the first bevel wouldn't suffice, I'd have to set another second bevel as well.

And I can't just add a piece of tape and touch up the second bevel, because now with the original second bevel gone, the edge of the first bevel is super-blunt instead of just a little bit blunt. The first bevel would HAVE to be set again before a second bevel could be. Otherwise the second bevel will get wider and wider every time I touch up the razor.

So essentially, I'm dooming myself to requiring taping the blade for touch-ups. And not only that, I'd have to go through the ENTIRE Unicot procedure every darn time I want to touch up the razor, as would anyone else I lend/sell/give the razor to.

Bah.

Originally Posted by olafurson

Here's my problem with the physics/geometry of the Unicot aka double bevel method. What happens when my razor gets dull again? I can't just take it to the coticule with no tape and touch up the first bevel, because only the second bevel has been doing the actual cutting. Fixing the first bevel wouldn't suffice, I'd have to set another second bevel as well.

And I can't just add a piece of tape and touch up the second bevel, because now with the original second bevel gone, the edge of the first bevel is super-blunt instead of just a little bit blunt. The first bevel would HAVE to be set again before a second bevel could be. Otherwise the second bevel will get wider and wider every time I touch up the razor.

So essentially, I'm dooming myself to requiring taping the blade for touch-ups. And not only that, I'd have to go through the ENTIRE Unicot procedure every darn time I want to touch up the razor, as would anyone else I lend/sell/give the razor to.

Bah.

Not so my friend, once your razor is dull you will not have lost the second bevel just dulled the very very edge of it, as with any razor, so for touch ups you will only need to add a piece of tape and touch up on the coti with water, it will take a few touch ups before you have to reset the initial bevel and go through the whole process again, so if you shave everyday with the same razor thats at least a good year or more until you may have to spend 1/2 hour re-honing.
Also if its the thought of the double bevel that you dont dig, you can go with the dilocut method, less than an hour from properly dull, no tape, you or anyone else can just touch up as needed dead simple.
Please understand I am just offering a simple way of achieving a superb shaving edge, thats within reach of anyone wanting to learn to hone.

how about this for suggestion:
- lap your hones (yes, do it again just before honing again), mostly the 1k and 4k
- get a proper bevel using the 1k norton
- finish setting the bevel using the 4k norton
- get the final edge on the 8k norton
- strop and shave
- repeat previous three steps (use pyramids) until your razor shaves well
- use the coticule with just water, then strop and shave to see what difference it will make compared to the norton 8k

note: multiple bevels sound like a problem with the razor. If it was honed without tape before there will be a single bevel only.

Originally Posted by gugi

how about this for suggestion:
- lap your hones (yes, do it again just before honing again), mostly the 1k and 4k
- get a proper bevel using the 1k norton
- finish setting the bevel using the 4k norton
- get the final edge on the 8k norton
- strop and shave
- repeat previous three steps (use pyramids) until your razor shaves well
- use the coticule with just water, then strop and shave to see what difference it will make compared to the norton 8k

Good plan!

Before anything else: in my humble opinion, you're brewing up a recipe that will put a lot of future frustration on your path. That recipe is called "jumping tracks". It's best to stick with one tried and trued paradigm, when you're new to honing. Right now, from what I read in your posts, I think the best approach for you is pyramids on the Norton 4K/8K. If you get it shaving, a few swipes on the Coticule won't do any harm.

Originally Posted by olafurson

It seems apparent to me I misunderstood the ideal use of the coticule, and when I asked a friend on the SRP board which hone I should get if I wanted only one hone, I asked the wrong question.

There is no ideal use of a Coticule. You can use it as a finisher, you can use it for setting bevels, you can use it as a mediator before another finisher. And for each of those uses I could spell you out what the advantages and the disadvantages were, just like that could be done for other hones.

Originally Posted by olafurson

I'm trying to sort all this out in my little brain, so here is what I took from the videos. Feel free to pick any of this apart if it's not correct:

1.I would like to think of the coticule-with-water as equivalent to perhaps a 10000 grit hone (since I have a Norton 4K/8K to compare to, and the coticule is supposedly "finer" than the Norton 8K).

If you're going to think in grit numbers, you better sell your Coticule and buy Naniwas or Shaptons instead. A Coticule is not finer or rougher than a Norton 8K. Is is just very different. Furthermore, someone with a good honing stroke, will put a better edge on a razor with a 6K hone than a heavy-handed guy with a 16K hone. Not that it means anything, but the Garnets in a Coticule have a median size equivalent to 1.5K, by the way.

Originally Posted by olafurson

2. A coticule with slurry is faster at removing steel, especially with a tiny bit of finger pressure. But it's still pretty darn slow. Let's say... a little slower than the Norton 4000?

More on par with a 1K stone, actually

Originally Posted by olafurson

3. A Belgian Blue Whetstone with slurry can in my mind be thought of as, let's say, a 6000 grit hone. Not as fast as the Norton 4000, not as slow as the Norton 8000 or Coticule.

See the remark above.

Never use a 220 grit hone on a razor, but you already figured that one out, I guess.

Originally Posted by olafurson

Here's my problem with the physics/geometry of the Unicot aka double bevel method. What happens when my razor gets dull again? I can't just take it to the coticule with no tape and touch up the first bevel, because only the second bevel has been doing the actual cutting. Fixing the first bevel wouldn't suffice, I'd have to set another second bevel as well.

You can easily touch up the narrow secondary bevel, with about 30 laps on the Coticule with water. Of course you need to reattach the tape.

Originally Posted by olafurson

And I can't just add a piece of tape and touch up the second bevel, because now with the original second bevel gone, the edge of the first bevel is super-blunt instead of just a little bit blunt.

No. It doesn't get any more blunt than a single bevel. The secondary bevel looses some keenness after a number of shaves, just like a single bevel does.

Originally Posted by olafurson

The first bevel would HAVE to be set again before a second bevel could be. Otherwise the second bevel will get wider and wider every time I touch up the razor.

Yes, it does become wider, but you can still do touch-ups. Even when the secondary bevel has completely wiped out the initial bevel, you can keep doing touch-ups, certainly on a full hollow ground razor.
On the other hand, you can also reduce the width of the secondary bevel by honing without tape. No need to completely reset it.

Originally Posted by olafurson

So essentially, I'm dooming myself to requiring taping the blade for touch-ups. And not only that, I'd have to go through the ENTIRE Unicot procedure every darn time I want to touch up the razor, as would anyone else I lend/sell/give the razor to.

Bah.

If I knew your preference for colorful language, I would have swallowed my comment about Aquanin's razor yesterday.

If you don't like to tape a razor, than don't use that method. It's that simple. But you don't need to go through the entire procedure for touching up the razor.

Originally Posted by tat2Ralfy

Good plan!

I second that. Way too many suggestions in this thread. Honing is not that complicated. You'd better focus on learning a good X-stroke, than on finding some magical honing paradigm.

Best regards,
Bart.

This is my best thread ever! You guys are awesome.

Thank you all for your thoughtful replies!

I promise I'm not trying to argue, just learn.

I do not believe in magic. However, I know there is more to life than looking under a microscope to see if my razor's edge is perfect enough. And I do NOT want to be one of those guys who brags about how high his hone's grit count is.

Originally Posted by Bart

Way too many suggestions in this thread.

I totally agree. That's where I'm coming from, as someone new to the whole honing thing. I spent only one afternoon looking up information on honing, and I found one guy using just a Norton 4k/8k and pyramids, then another guy who likes setting bevels with the Naniwa Superstone 5K better, then a third guy who doesn't use pyramids at all and just uses his thumb to tell when he's done on the 1200 grit diamond stone for bevel setting, etc etc... there are as many "recommended" honing methods as there are stones!!!

What's a noob to do?!

That's the purpose of this thread. I'm trying to distill all that random information down into a permanent, workable solution that works for me.

I am willing to accept that even Lynn Abrams is unable to put a better edge on a blade with a 30K ceramic stone than he can with a 10K or 12K stone, or Bart can with a coticule. Good, great, that limits me to either 10K/12K stones or a coticule for finishing, one of which I already own (the coti). Problem solved, I don't need to look for finish stones anymore. Coticule it is. Not because it's the best, but because it'll work and it's what I have. If I had a Chinese 12K, I'd stick with that. If I had an Escher or Shapton 12K or whatever, same thing. Even in my uneducated state, I can see no reason to have more than one polishing/finishing hone except just for fun. You guys only have to tell me "bevel setting is way more important than the fineness of your finishing polish stone" so many times before I get it. Got it.

I am also willing to accept that nothing over 5K will set a bevel on a razor. I currently own a 4K stone that requires no fancy moves to make it ready to hone except soaking it in a tub of water, and a coticule that takes at least some manipulation (slurrying) to make it capable of honing at the 1K level. Neither of these is particularly attractive to me, and here's why.

First, my argument against the coticule as bevel-setter. It's been suggested that a coticule can finish a razor at least as well as an 8K stone, yet set a bevel as well as a 1K stone just by slurrying the surface up. Don't you understand how that would mess someone up? Why couldn't someone just make a slurry on a Norton 8K and use it just like you're advocating use of the coticule with a slurry? What's the difference? Wouldn't that do the same thing? Has anyone ever tried?

I'm saying, for me, why not just use those precious little voodoo garnets in the coticule for the job they're world-renowned for - finishing - and use some el cheapo steel or ceramic or otherwise artificial jobby for the brute-force bevel-setting stuff?

My coticule was expensive. A 1200 grit hone is cheap and industrial-strength unbreakable, I can get one in diamond-on-steel for, like, $50 from a hundred different websites. I'd rather preserve my rare, special, fancy coticule from the one mine in the whole world that makes them, for my lifetime AND my son's lifetime and HIS son's lifetime, rather than keep slurrying it away little by little. That just feels... wrong. I don't have some big stack of coticules to use, I've only got my one-and-only that I hope to never have to replace.

Which currently leaves me with using my 4K Norton or 1K Norton for setting bevels. Or, I can use my Norton 220/1000 on my kitchen knives and replace it as needed, buy a new 1200 grit hone for bulk razor steel removal that will probably last my lifetime, use the 4K/8K for pyramid work, and the coticule for finishing if I feel like it.

Both of those sound like good ideas to me. For now, since I already own the Norton 1K, I plan to use it and the 4K/8K pyramid per gugi's recommendation during my next session. I might replace it later with the DMT D8E, we'll see.

The pyramid thing seems a little too cookbook for me and I'm doubtful, but I'll take y'all's word for it that it works. Again, we'll see.

Because of these discussions, in my own mind I've ruled out taping (bah!), double-bevelling (bah!), I've ruled out Eschers and Thuringians and barber hones for finishing (for now I'm a Coticule-for-finishing man), I've ruled out under-1000-grit stones (too harsh) and over-8000 grit stones (won't improve the edge more than the Coticule will), and the only piece of equipment I might want to play with that I don't already own is a $50 commonly-available diamond hone. Maybe that's what I should ask Santa for. Done, problem solved as far as equipment goes.

I've also made, and documented making, a handful of dumbass errors that, if I'm lucky, will prevent some other dude (maybe even my son!) from ruining one of his razors or wasting time trying to hone in a way that I know won't work.

Pretty good progress for two days work, I think!

And to the fellow who PM'd me and told me he was looking forward to taking his barber hone to the one-and-only truly shave-ready razor he owns, I say this: don't do it. Consider honing a different, not-shave-ready razor first so you understand what exactly it is your shave-ready razor actually needs!!! If you dull your one good razor, and therefore have nothing to compare your edges to, you're up a creek.

I think it's a grave error suggesting the first hone a newbie should buy is a barber hone or other finishing/maintenance stone. How is anybody supposed to know how to maintain something if he doesn't know what he's maintaining or why!??!?

I am getting the distinct impression that I should have been practicing my honing all along instead of muddling along with razors that maybe weren't as sharp as they could have been. Maybe the first thing I should have done is bought two of the same shave-ready razors - one to practice shaving, dull the other with a bottle and use it to practice honing - and a 4K/8K hone to learn how to make "b" feel like "a" again as soon as possible. I bet I would have saved myself many crappy shaves with less-than-optimal equipment.

Lesson learned. I will teach Leo to hone at least as soon as I teach him to shave.

But before I do, I will try to discover if he approaches life from a grit-count-and-microscopes point of view, a romance-and-mystery point of view, or a balance of both, so I'll know what kind of hones to get him.

Never have I seen a thread that answers the question of "which hone should I buy" with "depends - do you prefer Math or Art?"

Stay tuned for more! This is fun!