Thread: A Very Educational Exercise

Originally Posted by souschefdude

Holy cow. How long did that take? I was working on a resto the other day, and gave up after 1 hour on a 220K Norton stone and about 30 minutes on a 1K. The bevel is finally set, but I didn't have the energy/patience to finish on the 4k and 8k.

it actually did not take very long at all. These were full hollow 5/8 razors in lovely condition. I was extra worried about spine wear so I used the lightest stroke I could execute.

To set the bevel it took, on a Norton 1K, 40 X strokes, 40 circles each way, and 40 more X strokes. At this point they shaved moistened leg-hair very nicely. My legs look good too! Then I gave then about 20 X strokes on a Naniwa 1K because, well, any stone that smooth has to help make the bevel nice!

Then I gave them, on average, 25 X strokes on the Naniwa 3K and 8K and checked that they could cut arm-hair above the skin, then finished with, on average, 30 strokes on the Naniwa 12K. I say "on average" because I was watching for the water to start running up the razor evenly across the edge, and also on the Naniwa stones there is a kind of feeling the razor gets when it's right. Maybe I'm goofy but that's what I think for now!

Then I hit the CrOx strop for 30 laps, then 30 on fabric, 60 on leather.

One of the razors, Sunday, after setting the bevel, I used the BBW/Coticule method described in the honing Wiki here--a thin slurry on the BBW to refine the edge and then water and light strokes on the Coti to finish. Because I'm still curious about the "coticule edge" I only stropped that one on fabric and leather, not CrOx.

Here's a picture of one of the razors: