Thread: Favored methods of honing

There are a couple of good reasons for a new guy to use pastes and a paddle when starting out. One is expense. For a little over a $100 one can buy a 4 sided paddle and a DMT 8EE plate (even less if you make a balsa paddle) and keep a razor that has had a bevel set going for a very long time. Time enough to learn how use a straight fairly well. When I stated out I used the above approach I was using very keen razors from the get-go, the number one problem that is confronted by the new guy other than technique. It is easy to forget just how intimidating all this is when starting out. It is great that Blackntan is able to go the hone route but not all that start can go that direction.


Take Care,
Richard

Originally Posted by BlacknTan

All good and thoughtful posts!

I've gotten some pretty good edges... for me. I've only gotten one razor professionally honed, and I'd say I'm in the ballpark. But, will I ever know if I've taken a particular razor to it's limits?
Do the Pros know when they've coaxed every bit of keenness out of a blade, or is there always that nagging doubt that perhaps another stone or system might just provide a touch more? Maybe this finisher instead of that would have been a hair better?

BTW, I don't use pastes or sprays, powders or anything applied to a strop for enhancement. I want to see how much I can get out of stones only first.. Otherwise, how will I know if my honing is progressing if I'm artificially covering my errors?

P.S.

I've already realized that I don't know what I do know!

The only way you will know if you have taken a blade to it's limits is to re-hone it or tweak it and see if you can make it better. There is no magic here although the quest for the perfect edge never goes away. Some razors are known to shave OK and for the most part and almost every time you hone one, you can make it shavable. Some razors consistently take a better edge and provide a better shave, but you can still be fooled here on occasion. In addition the stretch from great shaver to one of the best is not a far stretch, but it can be elusive. If you want to know what razors are truly the best, then you have to try a bunch of razors as personal preference plays a huge part in these discussions. Same with hones.

I don't know where the notion of not using pastes, powders or spays comes from, but these media play a very important part in the search for the holy edge. I can get great shaves off an 8K stone, 12K stone, 16K stone and a variety of natural stones. All can be made just a touch better however with the use of sprays or pastes. Sometimes you just hit the edge perfectly off the stones and the result is magical. If I could make this happen every single time, I would bottle the method. The key is to not overdo it. Less is always better in my approach to honing.

You would not believe all the things that effect honing. The type of water you have, the individual hones and razors themselves. The grind of the razor, the hardness, the prior wear.......humidity, wind velocity and a bunch of stuff.........The amount of pressure you put on the stones can be critical.

I am most confident when I use the circle method including diamond spray or CrOx that I have gotten the most out of the edge, but if the edge is not up to my expectation, I can repeat the process or a part of the process and get the razor there with consistency and reliability. I can teach this method and the pyramid method to new guys and they usually can catch on quickly. Where do I get my expectations? From honing so damn many razors!! That said, there are tons of methods out there these days and more coming. Each person has to find the method that will give them the confidence to make razors sharp and that confidence will lead to consistency even if you have to tinker with an edge for a while. So long as you know what tinkering it takes, you're good to go. I have yet to find a perfect method, complete with the amount of strokes or circles that will work to give the ultimate edge on every razor (Doesn't mean I'll quit looking for it any time soon).

Nothing will take the place of simply honing more types of razors and experimenting with more hones. This learning process is really important if you want to build an internal data base to assist you in your search for the ultimate edge. The more you hone, the more you will learn and the more your individual skill set will increase. You can also hone the only razor you have every week or month or year and see how much better you can make it.

Honing is as much an art as a science and I believe it should be treated as such. Can everyone hone??? I don't think so, but not everyone can paint a masterpiece, build a house or a car or a plane or program a computer either. This is just a sport that more people are enjoying and learning about every day.

Have fun,

Lynn

riooso,

You are quite correct

The medium to long-term maintenance of the razors edge is something that has to be faced one way or the other, and can be intimidating.

When I started honing, I couldn't quite get the edges I liked straight off the stones.

The pastes saved the day, and my pasted edges shaved very well

I got into the habit of relying on the pastes for the final finish; from a practical point of view this wasn't a problem, as the edges were uniformly good, and therefore I could maintain my razors as I liked them indefinitely by this method of stones & paste.

Now, I would like to 'up' my skills, to reduce the reliance on pastes.

Have fun !

Best regards

Russ

One thing that helped me a lot was getting the basics down.
I spent too much time reading in the advanced honing section way too early on. I was complaining in the chat to anyone that would listen that "xxx doesn't work for me" or that I needed narrower hones, or that my edges looked great under a microscope, but wouldn't shave. I was sure I needed more hones, different pastes, and different sprays. I was also sure that I had lots of razors made out of bad steel. I got the same answer from everyone in the chat, but it was finally when I talked to a honemeister on the phone, that it sunk in... I needed to get the basics down, and learn to get good bevels set before I worried about any of that other stuff.
I think the best advice I was ever given (which for my personality was the hardest to follow) was to get a decent set of synthetic hones and one paste for a strop and learn to use those, then worry about the advanced stuff later.

Originally Posted by Kees

One of the reasons certain hones are so popular is the fact that you can marry them to almost any razor. Naniwas, Nortons, coticules and Eschers usually are perfect husbands to most razors.

The coticule is a stellar example of this. I think the fact that vintage razors & even most new ones are generally made of a standard high carbon steel or stainless makes this an easy marriage.
When you look at the different alloys, stainless, etc that's available in knives, planes, chisels & swords the marrying sometimes need to have more compatibility

Generally, I "marry" a steel & hone only at the finishing level. Other than that my Norton 4/8 have proven themselves to be dominant over most razor steels. For edge restoration/initial bevel setting I have settled on 1K wet/dry sandpaper because it works so fast.

FWIW, I recently had the opportunity, at Utopians razor meet, to try the Norton 1K, Shapton Glass 1k, Naniwa 1K and sandpaper 1K, one after the other on the same razor. The sandpaper was still the most aggressive, then the Naniwa, then Shapton with Norton coming in last ( which did not surprise me). The downside to the sandpaper is that occasionally it is a PITA and takes longer to set up for use.

Just my $.02,

Randy, with respect, that would make sense on the 1k sandpaper being more aggressive as it's closer to 600 grit if you convert the rating system to match the 1k Japanese rated stones but wet'ndri papers are pretty aggressive also as they are SiC based. I think the Sigma Power stones are SiC stones. I haven't used them but I'd bet they're fast. Maybe one of the knife or tool guys can confirm.

Back to 'marriage' I find even at early bevel setting some razors will tolerate the DMT's but some will chip & then settle nicely if changing to a waterstone etc..
Another example of needing the right stones is say honing a 66-67 HRC Iwasaki tamahagane razor to shave readiness. Maybe it can be done on Nortons but for me, life is too short to find out I would want fast aggressive stones including at polish stage in that case.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

Randy, with respect, that would make sense on the 1k sandpaper being more aggressive as it's closer to 600 grit if you convert the rating system to match the 1k Japanese rated stones but wet'ndri papers are pretty aggressive also as they are SiC based. I think the Sigma Power stones are SiC stones. I haven't used them but I'd bet they're fast. Maybe one of the knife or tool guys can confirm.

Back to 'marriage' I find even at early bevel setting some razors will tolerate the DMT's but some will chip & then settle nicely if changing to a waterstone etc..
Another example of needing the right stones is say honing a 66-67 HRC Iwasaki tamahagane razor to shave readiness. Maybe it can be done on Nortons but for me, life is too short to find out I would want fast aggressive stones including at polish stage in that case.

Hello Onimaru,

I have been looking at grit tables for a bunch of years now and what I have noticed is that there are many standards and many versions of those different standards and even that is complicated by by the differing implementations by the different mfg. So what I do is geared to the novice...I try to keep it simple.

You may very well be correct but it would have to be a comparison between a specific standard, specific sandpaper and a specific waterstone. I do not believe generalizations can be made.

There is one more variable that has not been discussed much, the number of abrasive grains per square inch. I suspect that sandpaper has more than a waterstone.


Razors...I do not address the extremes of blade composition or heat treatment. To do so would result in a thread so long that we would all grow weary of it. Again, I am trying to stay within the "norm" that most guys will encounter. But...maybe Mike Blue will allow me to hone a razor he has made from his Tamahagane some day!

Agreed, Randy. It is a complex subject & one that can be made even moreso by a pedant like myself I like the KISS principle but often forget to apply it.

Don't know re abrasive grain count per inch but stones certainly have fillers & binders that would cut that down compared to papers.

I do realise that razors that constitute the norm can be dealt with the most commonly used stones or they wouldn't be commonly used.
I'm sure you'll have fun with that Mike Blue razor when you get to it