Thread: Honing a Pipe razor !?

Hi!

I am getting frustrated with honing my wosty: I have settled a new bevel with 400/600/1200 progression, and it is good. I couldn´t get it to pop hair right after the 1200 wich got me worried, but I kept going....Then to my slurried BB stone and......nothing. Have been honing for almost 2 hours and can´t get an edge out of it when I shoud be able to....

Is it my progression or is it that this blade is stupidly hard ?!

Someone here that as one or as had honed one: some help please

Using a slurry on your BB will round off the edge you set on the 1200. It takes a bunch of practice to know exactly when to dilute the slurry. As the slurry gets diluted it sill bring the edge back. Knowing when and how much to dilute the slurry is the key with the BB and the coti and there isn't a way I can tell you when to do it. Nest advice is to go slow with the diluting and do lots of strokes in between. No worries about wire edge with the BB and coti. Keep going till you get to just water. If the blade isn't sharp enough for you at that point make more slurry but a bit thinner and repeat. Same goes for when you use slurry on the coti. There isn't any set fast rule or technique I can pass on to you. Sorry

Go back to the 1200 and get it shaving arm hair before you move on.
When I started honing it was hard for me to admit that I wasn't getting the bevels set and I figured something magical would happen if I just moved on to sharpening. (actually I figured I had a lot of unique blades, odd steel composition, bad blades... anything other than that I just wasn't getting the bevels set right)
I had to have at least four honing experts (probably more, but I remember hearing it from at least four) tell me to get the bevel set before I moved on to sharpening.
It helped me immensely once that finally sank in.

Get it to shave arm hair, then move on to your sharpening progression.

Btw, is this pipe a wedge?

The most improtant thing when honing is setting the bevel. If you can't cut hair at that stage then the angles of the bevel are off or its rounded on the edge. Keep trying on the low hones until your legs start to embarass you when you wear shorts. Lol

I'm with the two gentlemen that preceded me and gave you stellar advice. The coarsest stone in your arsenal is the one that counts the most and does the lions share of the work for you. Once the bevel is properly set, finishing is simply refining the edge created by the first stone and, in my opinion, is the easiest part of the honing process. It doesn't take much work to get a properly set bevel finish-honed. You should come off your coarsest stone (say 1,000 grit) scary sharp. If not, your finer hones are only going to polish the shoulders of the bevel and won't do anything at all to the cutting edge, frustrating the hell out of you.

I agree with the other guys. If you cant shave arm hair at skin level off the 1200, then everything else you're doing will just polish that dull edge. You have to get that bevel set right at the start before you move on.

If the bevel is playing hard to get, start out with two or even three layers of tape on the spine to ensure you make good contact with the very edge of the bevel. Once you can shave arm hair with two layers of tape, move down to one layer of tape and set a true bevel, make sure you can shave arm hair again and then take things from there.

If you hone without tape, start with one or two layers of tape and move down to no tape when setting the true bevel.

Hope thats of some help.

Thanks guys!

I have gone back to the 1200 and I have to admit it: the bevel wasn´t set yet. Now it shaves properly

Lets get to polishing

B.

I have one pipe razor that gets incredibly sharp and stays that way for a long time. Good steel.