Thread: Stright down the hone

If someone mention stirations again, I am comming there and slash you with your own favorite razor.





pics from pdf file, experiments on knife sharpening, by John D. Verhoeven
Emeritus Professor
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Iowa State University
Ames, IA

Just cause I make a decent knife doesn't mean my word is gospel. I was only trying to add something else to the mix. I actually like everyone's theories. There's always room in my garage for improvement.

I think my only point in regards to the striation theory on the hone was that they don't match the typical stropping pattern. On one side of the blade the strop would form about a 60 degree crosshatch to the stiations being formed... no?

hey, no hard feelings, I was only teasing the stiration master, Alan

Now, being serious, the stirations on the blades sides are clearly visible, but on the very edge there are no stirations or fins... the magnification levels are prety descent, at 2000 and 3000x and the very edge width measures ~0.35- 0.4 microns (the same as your favorite comercial blade, if there is one ). I have tryed to upload bigger pics, but there are forum limitations...

I think the strop don't do else but straighten the possibly bent edge, like the one on your Pakistani experiment, and maybe act like scyte man?, hitting the very edge on the scyte with hammer, thus extending it and compressing the metal... There is also some silica in the leather, but I doubt that takes much metal at all...

Nenad

Hello Bill, thanks for the welcome back.

Just want to add my two cents to this thread.

I feel that by using either linen or leather ( pasted or not) with an edge trailing/heel leading motion results in the smoothing of the tops of the striation's. Wether(sp?) this is a result of just the abrasion or also from the heat generated I do not know. Many people have noticed that a razor feels better after have been stropped and shaved with a couple of times. I know that I certainly have.

Now, to your idea of alternating heal/toe leading strokes. I know with certainty that a toe leading stroke is awkward as hell ( I tried it some time ago). The major hesitation I have with this is that it may put to much stress on the edge of the razor and weaken it, thus making it more likely to develop a microchip. The reason I say this is that I have observed that by using either a 1000 grit hone to remove nicks or by using a 4000 grit hone and using a circular honing motion that I almost always have developed microchips on the edge when I move to a pyramid sequence.
Since I have stopped using the 1000 grit hone and have stopped using the circular honing motion( to remove chips in the blade) the incidence of microchips has been substantially reduced. My theory is that they just stress the steel to much.

I will go back into my cubbyhole now,

Originally Posted by urleebird

Just cause I make a decent knife doesn't mean my word is gospel. I was only trying to add something else to the mix. I actually like everyone's theories. There's always room in my garage for improvement.

I think my only point in regards to the striation theory on the hone was that they don't match the typical stropping pattern. On one side of the blade the strop would form about a 60 degree crosshatch to the stiations being formed... no?

Wow! All that excitement and not once did you guys pound on me. Well except for Nenad threatening to slice me up...but watch out buddy, I carry a 1911 daily...LOL.

I'm having trouble understanding the complexity of thought over striations and the relationship to honing/stropping. Are we in agreement that the strop lessens the striations at the edge and aligns the edge of the blade? I'm asking here, not stating any opinion, I honestly am not sure. In my opinion, in a classical honing sense (and I think most guys on here prefer a more modern, techno, sharpen till it can slice a knats wing honing) that the striations at the edge become almost tooth like and that these teeth become misaligned with each shave. The teeth are realigned with each stropping. I keep my razor so striated now that I think I can actually feel these teeth, so this makes sense to me.

What I have witnessed via microscope to be honest, completely baffles me. What it looks to me like is that the strop doesn't align jack. It looks to me like the leather strop smooths striated lines all over the blade edge. Or perhaps smooths the edges by adding a mixed striation pattern.

So I suppose we need to agree on what the strop is actually doing.

Randy, if what your saying is true does that mean that a slight bowing of the strop (and I mean very slight) is in fact good for the edge? Or rather that the natural slight bowing of the very tip of the edge against the strop is the action that makes this buffing down of the edge? Might this be why say 50 passes works better for you guys than say 5? I usually use about 5 but based on what your saying 50 or even 30 would be better. I've always thought I was just aligning stuff up and the fact that it only too 5 passes to get it aligned was just fine by me. What keeps the rest of the razor edge from getting buffed out?

It wouldn't surprise me if re-honing was simply a process of reapplying the striations to the blade (sorry Nenad)...

And that stropping is simply an aligning of the edge and a smoothing out of the striations, this is important, because this is what it appears to do...could stropping simply be a smoothing out of the striations?

Oh, and while were on the subject. Guys, guys, guys . . . I don't think honing a straight edge is the same as honing a DE razor (and wicked different then say a knife). What if . . . lets just say, that honing a straight razor were done just like a DE razor with pasted leather strops, say .5, then .25, then .125 and then you shaved with it for say ohhhhhhh a week . . . and then it needs rehoning. Doesn't that seem so coincidental to shaving with a DE which is honed the same way, and then thrown out at exactly the same point? Doesn't it then make sense that a razor, properly striated, could shave for months on end without honing and just use the strop? Or lets turn the question around backwards . . . given that a barber shaved 10 people a day with the same blade without touch up honing for a week wouldn't you surmise that he is using some other characteristic to cut the whisker?

What if the primary purpose of a barber hone is to add striations to the blade and not remove lots of metal? Ever seen an advertisement for a barber hone that says "Can not overhone the razor". . . Now why is it that they say that?

Yea, btw, good thread, and I hope that no one gets pissed at me...but I really do think there is something to this striation thing (sorry again Nenad).

I honestly think that honing at a 90 degree angle, or trying to maintain an edge indefinetly on .25 paste are two ways to discredit my theory. So all you guys that have experience doing this chime in ... or any one else for that matter. One of you guys has got to be dying by now to take a sharp blade and work on adding striations (its not as easy as saying it) and then strop down the striations, and then test shave, and see how long the edge lasts and see if you think its effective. I will tell you this, in my opinion, an edge that is well honed probably has too much metal removed at the edge to do this really well so a dull razor is what I would recommend. Convienent though, why striate a sharp blade.

My 2c are that I fail to see the stirations (slicing my finger with my 7/8 Henkels) on the SEM pictures on honed straight razor AND on DE blade.

Also, I dont believe that they exist at all, and the talk about "stirations" fail only on grit size, and it's ability to bring the two sides of the bevel to smallest point possible (.35 microns). The smaller the grit (and, let's say particles) that protrude from the hone, the finer this edge would be. Imagine, if you run 8000 grit sharp razor on 4000 grit hone, you will actually hit the .35 micron edge with larger particle than .35, and make it duller...

I have no idea if the razor would shave off the 4000N, but I have no desire to try either. I have fairly coarse beard, and my razors last about the same as DE blade would do, that's about 5-7 shaves. But have in mind that DE blade has two sides, so actually it is getting duller twice as fast...

Now, I am curious to try my barber hones, and completely sharpen one razor on them, and try to get "old school" edge on them. I am not sure if barbers did 10 or more people without honing between... I believe they touched a razor every 5 or so shaves, also they stropped between passes, which is what I do my last 3-4 shaves, and get really smooth feel.

The professional sharpeners were using Belgian yellow stones too, so that brings the theory about coarser edge back to drawing board, I guess ...

Nenad

Interesting . . .

No not 4k, too much for that. Just 8k or perhaps a barber hone,which could be even higher. The blade will shave just fine. Its not so much that you get a better shave, its that you can accomplish the same thing with much less work.

Your description of the edge and the .35 thing is cool. I need to think about that. I would think in your example the blade would get overhoned, not dulled.

Oh, Nenad, also, why is .35m the thinnest you can hone a blade?

So, ummmm just out of curiousity.

What do you guys make of this comment from the 1961 Barbers Manual;

"The razor must be stroked edge-first diagonally across the hone. This is to produce teeth with a cutting edge, which is a very important factor in increasing its cutting ability. The angle should be equal on both strokes, to insure that the teeth will be set at the same angle on both sides of the blade." (pg 22)

I think this whole argument about striations is really when you think about it elementary. The hone is not a really homogenious object but a physical item made up of essentually either artificially "glued" grits in a ceramic home or naturally glued grits in a rock, like a coticule. Sooo as the edge passes over the hone striations have to be produced as a consequence of and result of these disparate grits each scratching the metal. Whether you can see them or not makes no difference they are there.

As far as what the strop does I think its been taken as a given that it realignes the edge and puts that final smoothing on the edge which is why razors seem to be more comfy after a few stroppings. Leather is a flexible material and even holding the strop as taught as is possible there will still be some flex as the razor traverses it. So is it the leather or this flexibility that allows the strop to work its magic eh?

And as to the x pattern or heel leading or all the other variants that exist in honing I think this discussion really demonstrates that there is no one way to hone and that each person developes his own way which works with each razor and each person will defend to the death his own way of doing it and claim it is the best way. Everybody uses varying amounts of pressure even though they may claim not to and everyone to a degree will allow that edge to lift off the hone and everone will use a differing angle no matter how much they try to keep it uniform and from day to day these will change for the same people so what I'm getting to here is that there is no magic bullet here. Everyone can read and practice and theorize but in the end each must find his own way. If your traveling from San Diego to L.A there are many routes to take and each one is the best for each person but in the end you make it to L.A.

So now you can all take you pipes out and start puffing away.

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

"The razor must be stroked edge-first diagonally across the hone. This is to produce teeth with a cutting edge, which is a very important factor in increasing its cutting ability. The angle should be equal on both strokes, to insure that the teeth will be set at the same angle on both sides of the blade." (pg 22)

I take it as ancient wisdom and don't question it too much. Whatever the microscope says, I can still feel the differtence on the edge from coarse to fine to wire edge. I'm willing to consider a more detailed explanation, but I still puzzle over it all to be honest.

AS for stropping ... it would be good to know if there is actually any smoothing away of the striations/fins/teeth. If it is so, then we want to strop more after the hone and less just before we are getting ready to go back. As an observation though, I always notice an improvement in the cutting action after stropping regardless of how long it's been since I've gone to the hone. Admittedly, that's never too long.

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