Thread: Honing Experiment

I have Dovo 5/8 I could never get smooth enough or equal to antique store razors I've honed, so in sort of desperation I tried this.

One layer of tape, Norton 4k/8k honing the normal way with pyramids till it popped arm hair.
Then I moved to C12k but honed in stropping direction instead (75 laps), then paddle strop with green paste (25 laps), 70 laps on leather.

I ended up with a very smooth shave tonight and best ever with this particular Dovo, I'll have to try this on a few more razors before I can have any real opinions on this, but something worked wonders on my problem Dovo.

I had a very similar issue with a 5/8 best quality DOVO. I sent it to Lynn to check out for me, and he said that I had overhoned the razor and that taping the spine was not helping. Nothing that I was doing prior was giving a quality edge. This was also that I had honed giving me problems. Lynn rehoned and returned to me a wonderful shaver. With each stropping the shave seems to get smoother. Good luck

Originally Posted by knifenutnky

I had a very similar issue with a 5/8 best quality DOVO. I sent it to Lynn to check out for me, and he said that I had overhoned the razor and that taping the spine was not helping. Nothing that I was doing prior was giving a quality edge. This was also that I had honed giving me problems. Lynn rehoned and returned to me a wonderful shaver. With each stropping the shave seems to get smoother. Good luck

Mine is the Best Quality model also. I may have done the same thing to mine as far as over honing. It's weird that I can get antique store finds way smother than the only razor I've ever bought new (until this experiment).

My thinking for this was that maybe on this razor the metal was more brittle and pulling past instead of pushing into on the final stone would polish better.

I would wait for Lynn to pop in, seeing how he has honed a brazillion Dovo razors.

But... Knife had mentioned his was overhoned... Well, if yours was the same, backhoning is one fix for overhoning if i remember right.


I have not been able to overhone a blade yet, so I will defer to the experts....

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

Well, if yours was the same, backhoning is one fix for overhoning if i remember right.

Thanks! I haven't read about that fix for over honing.

Knowing what I know now it was definitely overhoned. I was extremely new at honing when that happened. Got ahead of my experience level by taping the spine with multiple layers, and going crazy with a 1200 DMT. Learned from my mistakes and havn't had any problems since. It was odd because I could get vintage razors to pop hairs, but using the same process the DOVO would not. Originally thought I would never get another DOVO, but am actually looking at getting a new one. Since I got mine back from Lynn it has been an excellent shaver.