Thread: Won't get sharp

I bought a Claus razor yesterday and have been working on getting it honed. I've spent quite some time on the lower grit hones and no matter what I do I can't get it to even shave arm hair with a lot of pressure. The hone wear is even, the edge isn't frowning or smiling, I have no clue what to do here. Any incite is welcome.

I am sorry but without actually observing what you are doing I cant really help. Do you have any more information to share.

what hones do you have?
have you tryed the marker test?
do you have a loup or microscope?

Clauss a little different then rest of the blades out there.
it does have slight harder steel.
will be great if you could help us and give more information about stones you have and your experience on honing.
Picture of the blade will be nice too. gl

Some razors do take longer than others. Heat damaged blades are pretty much impossible to hone. When you say, "Lower Grit" What do you mean? How low?

Not sure on the exact grit rating. The lower grit hone is a Norton course/fine oil stone. Higher grit is a Norton 4k/8k combo. I'll get pics of the blade as soon as I can.

before i got the DMT i used psa lapping film 40 and 15 micron (taped to a hone) on razors that just needed a lot of work
hairs should be possible to cut at 40u but it will leave a lot of wear

If the Norton oil stone is like others that I have seen, you should not use the coarse side of that hone at all. The fine side of it might be okay for bevel setting as it is most likely still much more coarse than the Norton 4k. Keep in mind that the terms "coarse" and "fine" are relative, depending on the application.

It is possible that the grit of that oil stone is just continually chipping away at the edge. I have seen this happen with similar hones.

Now, this is complete speculation on my part, but if I'm right, the way around it with the hones you have is to try to set the bevel again with just the fine side of that oil stone. Then, and most critically, spend a lot of time basically setting the bevel again on the Norton 4K. It is possible to set a bevel on the 4k and this is probably what you are going to need to do. You also might want to consider doing some pyramids honing, starting with the aggressive pyramids.

Keep trying. Clauss razors are worth the effort!

The thing that's really confusing me, and I'm sorry I forgot to mention it before, is, I get it somewhat sharp (about as sharp as a finely honed pocket knife) on the fine side of the oil stone but it actually gets duller when I move to the 4k. Maybe I'll see if one of my local hardware stores has a 1k. I think the fine side is somewhere around 600 grit. Thank you for the advice everyone. I'll put it into practice. If I still can't get it sharp I'll just send it out to a pro.

Have you lapped your Norton 4k? That hone can have some surface schmutz that can trash an edge. It needs to be lapped until any feeling of grittiness is removed.