Trouble with Shaving off a Norton 4k/8k

Hey guys,

I just got my Norton 4k/8k combo today, and went ahead and put my Dovo to it. Naturally, I was terrible at first but finally started to understand what "only the pressure of the blade" really meant. I went back and did the pyramid listed in the Wiki, and I feel like it went pretty well. The bevel has a real nice mirror finish. However, when I shaved with it, it still had a lot of pull on the hair. It certainly wasn't as smooth as I thought it would be. Everything I've read says you can shave off of the 8k, but is it not that good of a shave? Or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,

Josh

As a new straight razor user, you need to get used to shaving with a "shave ready" razor first off. Once and only then can you learn to sharpen. The problem is you won't know where the problem is, with your shaving technique or with your honing technique.... A circle of frustration at best....

Learn to shave first.

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Originally Posted by josh69162

Hey guys,

I just got my Norton 4k/8k combo today, and went ahead and put my Dovo to it. Naturally, I was terrible at first but finally started to understand what "only the pressure of the blade" really meant. I went back and did the pyramid listed in the Wiki, and I feel like it went pretty well. The bevel has a real nice mirror finish. However, when I shaved with it, it still had a lot of pull on the hair. It certainly wasn't as smooth as I thought it would be. Everything I've read says you can shave off of the 8k, but is it not that good of a shave? Or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,

Josh

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Originally Posted by jeffegg2

As a new straight razor user, you need to get used to shaving with a "shave ready" razor first off. Once and only then can you learn to sharpen. The problem is you won't know where the problem is, with your shaving technique or with your honing technique.... A circle of frustration at best....

Learn to shave first.

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I suppose I should have been more detailed. I bought the razor from SRD, so it did come shave ready. Granted, I've been out of the shaving arena for a while as I went with a beard for the past few months.

Josh

What I did was buy old razors in good condition (no cracks, chips, decent scales) for relatively reasonable prices to practice honing. I kept my pro honed razors to give me a benchmark for my own honing and to shave with until I began to get the hang of it. Maybe you ought to send that one back to SRD and get some practice razors from an antique store, flea market, ebay if you know what you're doing. Keep the pro honed one to shave with and practice with the others.

If you really thought that you were going to get a great, or even decent, shave off of your first honing session, then you have seriously underestimated what the honemeisters have gone through to develop (I could have said "hone" :D) their skills.

The numbers in the pyramids are a basic starting point. They are not a magic formula. Most critically, their efficacy is dependent upon the starting condition of the razor. They also are impacted by the honing ability of the user. If this was your first honing ever, then you might have trashed your edge during the honing.

Another possibility is that you neglected to lap the 4k before using it. Because of the way the 4k hone is manufactured, the outermost layer has a tendency to have a coarse grit embedded in its outermost layer. If you did not lap the 4k, then this grit might have chewed up your edge.

I totally agree with Ron. With the best will in the world there is no way anyone is going to get a good shave ready edge off their first attempt at honing.

My first set of hones was the 1/4/8/16k Shapton on glass stones, and I had some 0.5 diamond spray as well. I hated the edge off that 16k and the diamond spray only improved it marginally. I wasnt happy.

So, as Jimmy says, I got a few razors to practice on and gradually I found that I quite liked the 16k edge. There was no need for the diamond spray as it didnt really add much to the finished edge. So then I thought "Why not try shaving off the 8k?" as I'd heard that this was a real test of your honing. Man, was that 8k edge horrible!

So I practiced some more and started getting decent edges off the 8k as well. I actually went as low as 3k on a Naniwa stone a while back and still got a decent shave. Not the most comfortable, but servicable.

As Ron sais, its only when you start honing that you realise how skilled the pro's are! :) It sounds easy: Put razor on hone, move in X pattern, shave. But theres more to it than that, and it really is all down to practice.

My advice would be to have your razor re-honed by a pro and then track down some others to practice on, using the pro honed razor as a benchmark to judge your own honing efforts.

Good luck and keep us posted!

Hmm, I guess no one ever said this hobby was cheap. :gaah: But it sure is worth it when things fall together correctly. Time to hit the antique shops... :D

Out of curiosity, how many razors did yall have to hone before you really started to see your edges develop?

I'm a newbie with a similar set up. I have the same hones...I also purchased a cheap barbers hone off of ebay that I use as my finisher after the 8k. It's gone pretty well. I've only restored one razor that I use in my rotation, but it works as well as the razors I got off of the pros. I would suggest getting a barbers hone, but that's just me...lots of the more experienced gentlemen may have preferable info.

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Originally Posted by josh69162

Out of curiosity, how many razors did yall have to hone before you really started to see your edges develop?

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I guess I started to see an improvement after about 10
and 20,
and 50,
and 200,
and 500,
and...!

Unfortunately, I'm not kidding. My honing is better now than it was last year and I figure I still have a lot of room for improvement next year.

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Originally Posted by Utopian

I guess I started to see an improvement after about 10
and 20,
and 50,
and 200,
and 500,
and...!

Unfortunately, I'm not kidding. My honing is better now than it was last year and I figure I still have a lot of room for improvement next year.

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Good to see the light still gets brighter after all!

EDIT: That sounds a bit insulting after re-reading it. That was not my intention at all. I just meant that if the pros are still learning about this subject after all the years you've probably put in...I have a lot to look forward to.

Please forgive any mis-interpretation of my comment.

Okay, so after some practice I have a shaveable razor off the 8k. It's not sharp enough to get a really comfortable shave off the chin, but for the neck and cheeks its fantastic. Naturally, there's room for improvement, but I've been practicing a bit over the last few days. One of the razors I'm practicing on that I have a question about is a razor with a smiley.

I am attempting to use the rolling x-pattern, and I feel like it's going fairly well given the fact that I have essentially zero honing experience. I've found that watching where the puddle of water is in front of the blade is a great indicator of where the contact is being made. Using that, I try to keep the puddle of water towards the right of the hone as I make my x-pattern. Does this sound right? Right now I'm not able to do that 100% of the time, but with each stroke my results get more consistent.

Josh

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Originally Posted by josh69162

I am attempting to use the rolling x-pattern, and I feel like it's going fairly well given the fact that I have essentially zero honing experience. I've found that watching where the puddle of water is in front of the blade is a great indicator of where the contact is being made. Using that, I try to keep the puddle of water towards the right of the hone as I make my x-pattern. Does this sound right? Right now I'm not able to do that 100% of the time, but with each stroke my results get more consistent.

Josh

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Just make your strokes stone will have enough water always if you strokes straight(not lifting up one side of the blade etc) it will push the water.
you will see water from heel to tip.
it seems like you are cutting water.
hope this helps.

take pressure out when you hone on 8 k.

When using the rolling X stroke your key is to watch the puddle of water move from the heel to the toe of the blade as you make the stroke. If the water goes under the blade then you have not made the stroke correctly.

Your doing well, keep practicing.:)

Only after I bought a 12k naniwa did I actually learn to get a shave-able blade off an 8k (go figure!) I was surprised at the quality of the shave from an 8k, but also by the small amount of resistance that I once thought was "pulling". I can only describe the resistance as the difference in "forgivibility" between a true straight and a shavette. I think at least for me, the trick to get a blade ready off an 8k is to begin with very slight slurry and then with each set of 15 or so X-strokes, dip the stone in water, clean it off and with each set gradually reduce the slurry until there is none (this may be common sense to the more experienced folks though). Once there is no slurry just keep doing X-strokes to polish the edge and then strop it. I don't typically follow a pyramid but rather keeping the same number of strokes, but varying the amount of slurry.

This made me realize that when I started out I just kept doing sets on the stone with the same amount of slurry. By doing that you always end up keeping deep scratches and grooves in the edge and it doesn't get finer over time. But by reducing slurry as you go, it refines those scratches making the edge better.

Just my two cents.

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Originally Posted by Eclipse

Only after I bought a 12k naniwa did I actually learn to get a shave-able blade off an 8k (go figure!) I was surprised at the quality of the shave from an 8k, but also by the small amount of resistance that I once thought was "pulling". I can only describe the resistance as the difference in "forgivibility" between a true straight and a shavette. I think at least for me, the trick to get a blade ready off an 8k is to begin with very slight slurry and then with each set of 15 or so X-strokes, dip the stone in water, clean it off and with each set gradually reduce the slurry until there is none (this may be common sense to the more experienced folks though). Once there is no slurry just keep doing X-strokes to polish the edge and then strop it. I don't typically follow a pyramid but rather keeping the same number of strokes, but varying the amount of slurry.

This made me realize that when I started out I just kept doing sets on the stone with the same amount of slurry. By doing that you always end up keeping deep scratches and grooves in the edge and it doesn't get finer over time. But by reducing slurry as you go, it refines those scratches making the edge better.

Just my two cents.

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So the stone with the slurry will be slightly coarser than the same stone without the slurry?

Also how do you form the slurry?

Did u lap the stone.?

Slurry on a Norton, whatever the grit rating, is rather unorthodox. Slurry won't be any more coarse than the hone, but having those free, moving particles above the surface of the hone causes deeper scratches than having the partially exposed grit in/at the surface.

There is a lot more to honing than just grit ratings.

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Slurry on a Norton, whatever the grit rating, is rather unorthodox. Slurry won't be any more coarse than the hone, but having those free, moving particles above the surface of the hone causes deeper scratches than having the partially exposed grit in/at the surface.

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Said much better than my post. What I meant was those free moving particles keep "dinging" up the edge as your honing and by reducing the amount on each successive set of strokes (and therefore having a slicker, more wet and flat surface with the water) I would imagine it to refine the edge more. Like I said, it's hard to explain but this method turned out to be the way to get my blade working off an 8k which I never was able to. Also, I taped the spine with 3M electrical tape and used as light of pressure in the final few sets of strokes as possible. I also used two hands when doing X-strokes: 1 finger guiding the toe and the other the heel. After inspection with a 30X jeweler's loupe the edge (I thought anyway) looked pretty good. It delivers a beautiful shave with a minimum of irritation.