Thread: Slow cutters, heavy blade

Thank you gentlemen (especially Randy who did a lot of very instructive writing). Here's some missing info/what I've been doing so far:
Info
1) It's NOT the Taylor's I brought over to you, X. It's a "new" blade.
2) It is smiling
3) Lots of steel to remove as it's not a hollow grind by any means.

Actions
1) Removed the MAJOR nicks with the rough Norton Oilstone. It maintained a nice smiling profile.
2) Did some work on the 1000grit sandpaper, just to reestablish the basic bevel.
3) Some circular honing on the bottom side of the 4k
4) 20 passes + regular pyramids. Been using a heel to toe scything motion in my X patter with very little pressure when doing the pyramids.

Here's where I'm at now:
1) the heel of the blade is relatively sharp, won't need much more honing.
2) The middle portion is almost shave ready. Shears through hairs at high altitudes effortlessly.
3) The toe is extremely dull. The only way it will shave arm hairs is with LOTS skin contact, which (for all you n00bs out there) is ofcourse a big no-no. I'm ticked off b/c of it.

Should i take the toe back to the 4k and just do some circular work until I establish a bevel in that region?

Originally Posted by superfly

Sometimes, the first shave after the honing session is not so good, so you might try shaving second and third time to see where you stand...

Nenad

And sometimes the first shave can be great but the subsequent ones can be horrible. After I took the Taylor's to X's place, I guess it got overhoned with our honing session.. The first shave was great, but the 2nd one irritated the heck out of my skin. Gave it two very light pyramids on the Jap and since then, I've only been doing touchup honing on my FAVORITE razor. The Satinedge was a much finer grind, so it was easier to hone, but only taking it to the coticule brough it up to being a CLOSE second to the Eye Witness.

Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT

Here's where I'm at now:
1) the heel of the blade is relatively sharp, won't need much more honing.
2) The middle portion is almost shave ready. Shears through hairs at high altitudes effortlessly.
3) The toe is extremely dull. The only way it will shave arm hairs is with LOTS skin contact, which (for all you n00bs out there) is ofcourse a big no-no. I'm ticked off b/c of it.

Should i take the toe back to the 4k and just do some circular work until I establish a bevel in that region?

I'd say the problem is simply in the difference in pressure between beginning your stroke at the heel and ending it at the toe. I'd do a full pyramid making whatever change you feel would be most beneficial, say more pressure to the toe because you.re not putting the 4k striations in place. If that doesn't work make a different change, say less tip pressure or moving down to the tip of the blade sooner. A process of elimination should get you tere.

X

The problem is in the exact region that i took to the rough hone to remove those nicks. With all my other blades, the toe is as sharp as the rest of the blade. I'll try going circular on the 1k just in that region and then try the rolling pyramids again. Probably not tonight as I have a TON of work to do.

Just a gratitude note from a honing noobie: this is a really engaging and instructive thread! Most discussions of honing are more general in content. Listening to the detailed problem-solving about one troublesome razor on one particular set of stones is a cool change of pace.

I'm glad you're finding it useful. As you can see even some of us who have honed a few blades with a degree of success can still learn from each other and the masters like Randy. Unlike some of the true honemeisters, I've never honed a blade that's that massive, so curved in shape and that suffered such an extensive damage before I got to it. I may bite the bullet and just buy a Norton to make this job and other future projects easier on my hands and my schedule.

I had a chat about solving this problem with Randy tonight. Wanted to post this sooner but then my boss called me and held me up for a while. Randy proved himself to be a top notch guy, extremely helpful and a great creative problem-solver (as if it wasn't apparent already). The purpose of this post is just to give Randy a big THANK YOU! Anyways I better run and finish my work for tonight.