Thread: The light strokes..

That's where my trouble is at the moment.

I believe I'm getting a good bevel, but once I start on the light strokes things are changing on me. I will see (through my little USB microscope) a nice flat bevel with uniform scratch marks when I start on my light strokes, and after a few strokes I'll see some polishing going on, but as I continue with my light strokes I'll see the polished area move to the back of the bevel and the actual edge will lose its crisp appearance and will obviously not be touching the surface of the hone.

Am I seeing a wire edge here? If so, is this just to be expected if one takes more than four or five passes with no more pressure than the weight of the razor?

Thank you for any help you can offer.

n

Originally Posted by name

That's where my trouble is at the moment.

I'll see the polished area move to the back of the bevel and the actual edge will lose its crisp appearance and will obviously not be touching the surface of the hone.


n

This is tough to understand . would you please clear this a little.
while you hone you don't have to worry about the bevel scratches etc.
look to the edge of he blade.

Are you taping the spine? What you describe would perfectly match that effect.

I'm with Ron here. If you're taping your spine this is what will happen if you dont replace the tape regularly throughout the honing process.

The tape obviously wears much faster than the metal of the spine so you'll need to replace the tape often as you hone.

If a razor has an Ok edge when I get it then all it'll usually take is 40 circles and 20 X strokes on the 1k hone to get the bevel properly set. That only needs one lot of tape, but if I have to do more work and repeat that set several times then I'll replace the tape a couple of times on that one stone as the tape wears down.

Then I replace the tape before I move on to each new stone as well.

When I've needed to do edge repair on the 325 DMT I end up replacing the tape all the time as the stone is so aggressive!

Originally Posted by name

Am I seeing a wire edge here? If so, is this just to be expected if one takes more than four or five passes with no more pressure than the weight of the razor?


n

I believe this is a wire you are seeing which seems similar to my experience as you describe it. You can tell straight away when you shave which is typically what I do. I find I'm darn close to where I want to be so go back to maybe a 1:3, 1:5 progressions on the 4k/8k Norton depending on steel of blade. Again I'll test shave and decide what next if anything is required.
Just lately I've been using the Naniwa 5K instead on the Norton 4K for certain steels, it seems less aggressive to me.
In my experience over honing is more typical than what I see reported on these threads.
I am open to suggestion if anyone believes this not to be the case.

Thank you all kindly for the responses. I honed on the razor in question some more last night to try to get some pictures of what I was talking about but, strangely, things went quite well instead.

Here's a picture that I had saved earlier. See how the polish on the bevel doesn't extend all the way to the edge? And it would get worse as I persisted in light passes over the stone. I suppose I could have taped it, but that seemed like treating the symptom instead of the cause.

Micropic was taken at what the microscope manufacturer claims to be 200X. Microscope is the Red Ant, from eBay, about the cheapest one and it seems to work well. Only a 1.3m image though.

Again, thank you all for donating your time to help me with my honing, I really appreciate it.

n

Could you clarify what the photo shows? I see four regions. The area below the edge, the shiny edge, a region above it, and another region above that. If the region that is the second from the top is the bevel, then I don't think you're at 200x. I'm also confused because there are scratches that are continuous from the top region to the second to the top region. That would imply the second from the top region is not the whole bevel. Is the top region part of the bevel or is it the belly of the blade above the bevel?

Now i understand what you are asking. Sorry.
This is angle issue.
Go head take tape off and hone the blade on 1k to set true bevel.(THIS WILL remove some spine but that is fine) then move on your progressing.
gl.
you should be fine.

I use a stereo microscope a lot to check the edge on my razors. That pic is around 25x - 45x. NO where near 200x. Hope that info helps. I don't have enough experience to weigh in on the problem; but IMHO the final (second from the spine) edge is not very "crisp". I know some people like to put a second edge on a blade but I don't think that is what you were intending to do.

A USB microscope typically doesn't achieve the claimed high power asserted. More likely it is in the 20x to 30x range.

Is there any chance that you are pressing harder than you think you are when you hone? A hollow ground blade will flex under pressure, so where you are abrading will move on the edge, depending on the pressure.

If you are inconsistent with pressure in honing, you will observe the variable performance you describe.

I think it would be best to concentrate on using no pressure at all in your "light" strokes: this will maintain the finest edge possible.