Thread: Why Pyramid?

I hope nothing I said leads anyone to think I need 4k teeth to shave. Thats not the case. I don't need .25, or .5 or even 1k either. But I think I may need teeth. And I like shaving with a razor thats not too sharp, its nice and fun and it feels good. What more is the point of all this stuff? I am curious if you can erase the teeth and not get a good shave. I don't know if I've done that or not, but I have honed for a long time and made a blade that didn't shave well, many times actually.

X, I followed all of your AAAAAAAA comments, save one, the AA"""AA""AA""" interspersed. I'm not sure how you could intersperse the striations like that or any other way.

ok, here's the link on the excellent file on knife sharpening, from the Iowa state university. I strongly suggest you all read it, you will know what you discuss about...

http://mse.iastate.edu/files/verhoeven/KnifeShExps.pdf


check this file, too... it's called: Metallurgy of Steel for Bladesmiths & Others
who Heat Treat and Forge Steel.

http://mse.iastate.edu/files/verhoeven/7-5.pdf

have fun,
Nenad

p.s. Science behind Damascus steel:

http://mse.iastate.edu/files/verhoev...earchsize2.pdf

Nenad,

I don't see anything in the links, but I'm looking forward to finally knowing what I'm talking about...

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

Nenad,

I don't see anything in the links, but I'm looking forward to finally knowing what I'm talking about...

LOL! Amen, brother, me too! It is a blast exploring these things...

Jeff

the links came up eventually, they take a while to load though...reading them might take a while though...

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

X, I followed all of your AAAAAAAA comments, save one, the AA"""AA""AA""" interspersed. I'm not sure how you could intersperse the striations like that or any other way.

They don't actually fit in together quite so neatly, but think of it in three dimensions, the deapth of the striations from the surface down. Again, it's impossible to get them even, but the various levels (which I'm sure are being created) can make the edge easier to cut with.

X

The pdf files are quite big, best move is to right-click them and select "Save (link) as"...

I didn't ment to offend any of you, I wanted to say that you will be able to see the razor's and knifes edges with best quality magnification at ~1000x, the very edge too, and read some usefull stuff about some knife sharpening systems...

Nenad

Originally Posted by xman

They don't actually fit in together quite so neatly, but think of it in three dimensions, the deapth of the striations from the surface down. Again, it's impossible to get them even, but the various levels (which I'm sure are being created) can make the edge easier to cut with.

What actually happens is that the space between striations or scratches is subdivided into a plateau with thinner scratch lines. So, if you went from 4K to 8K each plateau is divided in half. To me it looks like pairs of 8K striations with a 4K space between them. How do you think this would cut any better than a continuum of 8K striations?

If a hair is 3 thousandths of an inch in diameter, even at 4K you get about 12 teeth on it. THe idea witha razor is that finer teetch are thinner and cut better. It's not like a serrated edge where you slide the teeth along the length of the edge. In a razor that kind of sliding movement is slight. Mostly, the edge moves forward into the hair. Even then, I would think the finer teeth would cut better because the hair is engaged by more teeth for a given amount of sliding movement.

Excellent images in that document, and definitley a good read. The pictures lend to my original thoughts that a 4K would scratch up a nice 8K finish. However the edge required to best cut hairs in the facial enviorment may include the 4K groves. As we are not just cutting hairs, but also scraping away some skin (hopefully not too much) in a soapy medium. I guess there are a few factors to consider that may also affect the performance of an edge.
I may be wrong but will too sharp of an edge lend to razor burn? Or is that due to technique, like too much pressure or too steep of a shaving angle?

Emil

Originally Posted by mmm_shavingcream

Excellent images in that document, and definitley a good read. The pictures lend to my original thoughts that a 4K would scratch up a nice 8K finish. However the edge required to best cut hairs in the facial enviorment may include the 4K groves. As we are not just cutting hairs, but also scraping away some skin (hopefully not too much) in a soapy medium. I guess there are a few factors to consider that may also affect the performance of an edge.

I may be wrong but will too sharp of an edge lend to razor burn? Or is that due to technique, like too much pressure or too steep of a shaving angle?

A 4K grit really has no place in keeping a razor keen. It's used to set up an edge on a dull razor, and that's it. Once the edge is keen the 4K can do little good. If you look at the old barber's manual, it speaks in terms of one hone and a strop. That probably would have been a fine to extra fine hone, because the manual specifically warns against using a hone that's too fast. So, traditionally the edge would be maintained with better than an 8K hone. I know of no reference that recommends aas coarse a hone as 4K for maintenance. My thinking is that in time the 8K hone will wear away all remnants of the 4K hone striations and then you'll have only 8K striations. That will be the steady state of your razor, and I don't know why you would ever go back to 4K unless you had a mishap.

Similarly if you were maintaining your razor with a Swaty hone or paste, you would end up with an even finer scratch pattern. That's what the barbers had.

I can't prove it but I believe that the exfolliation is a slight abrasive effect not slicing off a fine layer of skin. My reason for this is that the str8 gives you a kind of skin smoothness that I call afterglow. You don't get that with a DE or Feather str8 razor, even when you shave equally close. The reason, I believe, is that the str8 requires a little pressure, whereas the other razors do not. THat little pressure is doing the exfolliation. For some new shavers it causes a slight irritation that goes away after a while. I have experienced what I call overshaving with a sharp DE. That's when you shave off a fine layer of skin, exposing very sensitive skin. The area becomes very sensitive to touch for a short time. That's not the same as the exfolliation you get with a str8.

You should not get razor burn from a sharp edge (no matter how sharp) if you use it correctly. In fact, the sharper the edge the more you can reduce the pressure and the less likely you are to get burn. That doesn't mean you can't nick yourself. Razor burn is an abrasive effect. It can come from too much pressure or using the razor at such a stepp angle to the sking that you're scraping, like with a furniture scraper. With a sharp edge you're more likely to overshave, as I described above. Sometimes that's mistaken for burn.