Thread: frustration

im trying to have some patience here but man is this frustrating. it seems like every time i try and hone this razor it sharpens the wrong way (as in seems to get duller). it is the only one i have tried to hone so far as i have only had the hones for a little over i week now. it is a dovo SS and i dont seem to be able to get it right. i will send the other razors out to get done until i figure this out lol.

-dan-

what hones do you have? the reason I ask, is because you may be having trouble by not having a good range of grit size ... a problem i had was having unsteady hands and i'd jump the spine every so often.

The first steps in honing are frustrating, at least they were for me. All I can say is watch as many videos of the pros honing as you can find. When you're watching, pay attention to everything BUT the razor. Watch their wrists, how they flip the blade, watch the water in the videos where you can see it. After you've seen the video a couple times, watch it (them again), and now you can pay attention to the razor.

There are many senses involved in honing: touch, sight and sound.

Be patient.

i have the norton 220/1k, 4k/8k. i watched gssixguns videos a few times, just trying to copy what he does in it, i came into this knowing that it would be frustrating so im still in good spirits about it. ill see if i can find anymore videos.

my hands are probably pretty unsteady so im sure thats a problem and will be until i start to get the hang of it

-dan-

Stainless can be a bit trickier, it is harder and therefore a little more brittle, watch the pressure or you will tear the edge up. Do you have a microscope?

I don't have any thing for magnification yet

Try to find a 10X (available at photo shops) or 20X loupe to check your bevels and edge with.

Another things is to read up on sharpness testing in the Wikis. Without a way to check for sharpness at the various stages of honing, you're just rubbing steel on stone with no idea of where you are or where to go next.

Also, remember that stropping is the final stage and sometimes creates and reveals a sharp edge that your honing created but wasn't quite finished yet.

It may be useful to put that one aside and just maintain a known good edge for a while. The muscle memory acquired is useful when you come to the harder honing tasks. Even if you don't like the suggestion and choose to ignore it, I've found that frustration is never useful while honing and a little calming down while the offending blade is left for a while can help. Good luck and I hope this helps. You can get there.

Take a ride from Ft. Campbell over to Cape Girardea some afternoon and I'll help you get rid of the frustration.

Have fun,

Lynn

I to am starting to learn how to hone and have problems like your are talking about with my razor ackting like it was getting duller when i moved to higher grits. Just yesterday I was working on a razor that was doing that and looked at my bevel after I thought I had it set under a 15x radio shack loop and could see that after a few passes on a norton 8k I was not getting shiny at the very tip of the edge so I would go back and work on the bevel again. At last I must have finaly got the bevel set properly because after the 4k then the when I was on the 8k it starred to really undercut the water and uder the loop I could see that it was getting touched all the way to the cutting edge and I realized what everybody means about getting a good bevel before moving to higher grits and it really was popping hair like what I think they mean. My problem has been not getting the bevel set right and moving up in grit thinking that I was allright. Still a long way to go but learning with each trip to hone. I also would take a break after frustration level was up and return after a cool down period with new determination ao keep at and good luck. Im a new guy to so hope this helps a little.
Glenn