Thread: When to move from the 4k to the 8K

So, I am still working on these ebay cheapies, and first off let me say a HUGE thanks to everyone who has offered advice and helped get me this far in the process of figuring out honing.
My question is kind of specific to signs that it might be time to move from a 4k to an 8k hone.
Here is where I am at:

I got a set of Beauty and Barber straights from eboy. (before anyone chimes in, YES, I know they are bad...... but I am using them to work on my honing skills). I am Working on one at a time, so all of this applies to one blade.
I have a very coarse stone (honestly not sure what grit... but probably 200-300 ish) that I have used to set the bevel. I am able to cut arm hair well with it, it passes the thumb nail test, the TPT (to the best of my knowledge, I do feel it biting, and there are no "smooth" spots, sharp all the way down).
I moved on to my 4K, with a slurry and worked it, slowly reducing the slurry until none. It seemd to get duller.
so I went back and worked the bevel some more. I am fairly certain I have the bevel set correctly (it took aout 45 min WITH pressure), and I went back and worked the 4k again.
Here is what I am noticing:
Blade seems to be making excellent contact with stone. I am definitly getting the squeegee effect. I can feel "suction" on the blade as I do my passes, and it is actually undercutting the water down most of the edge (water is flowing up onto the razor as I do passes).
I honestly didnt count the amount of laps I did (probably in the ballpark of 100) and I moved up to the 8K. same thing... great contact, squeegee effect, undercutting the water on the stone, so I did about 50-75 passes on the 8k, until it "felt done".
then I did 25 on the chromium ox (.3 micron) and 25 on the Iron Ore (.1 micron) and did a bit of stropping (probably 60).
It did shave. which is a miracle with this thing, but it certainly wasnt anywhere near as nice as my honed razors from Whipped Dog or my wapi from Slartibartfast.
I am thinking I should go back and do more time on the 4k, to really get that edge dialed in...... so how does one know when you are done with the 4k? are there any clues?
Or are pyramids the answer here? and if so, I would still be curious as to what to look for to know I am there? anyting? Shy of shaving with it?
FWIW, I have NEVER been ablt to pass a HHT with this blade, and that was my goal until I kept reading that sometimes is just doesnt happen. My Wapi passes the HHT flawlessly, my two shave readys from Whipped Dog dont, but shave wonderfully, so I am not really sold on that being an indicator of a shave ready blade.
Any help is appreciated.

BTW: sorry for being so winded.

May be a quik solution to your question, is to do the pyramid honing. This is in the wiki .

You may just be reaching the limit of what you can achieve on that razor.

Stay on the 4K till you can shave arm hair without using pressure.

I had considered that option as well

I suppose if that is the case, it clearly demonstrates two points.
1) they are in fact QUITE crappy, if MY honing skills exceed their ability to get sharp. and
2) I am that much more glad I refused to pay someone to hone them.

So, is there any surfire way to know if that is the case, aside from sending them to someone and having them go, "yep, sharp as it's getting... that'll be $20".

And let's pretend that is not the case, and it is me (something I did wrong, or havn't done enough of).... how then to proceed? (both for my benefit when tackling another razor, and also for those reading who may be in the same boat, but with a different razor)

Originally Posted by Wid

Stay on the 4K till you can shave arm hair without using pressure.

ok, thanks. I will give that a shot

is that the "arm hair popping" I hear people mentioning?

Wet down the arm hair and shave, it should shave with very little effort. You should be able to pop arm hair BEFORE going to the 4K, this is knowing you have a correct bevel set.

it does cut arm hair with very little effort.
However, I dont have a 1K, and am setting the bevel with a crude 200-300 grit, with the intention of cleaning up the scratch pattern with the 4k with slurry. I am under the impression that you can even set a bevel on the 4k, I was just hurrying the process by going to a much lower grit stone.
I have no doubt that I need to go back and do some more work on the 4k.... that is assuming that the blade is even capable of being any sharper than it is, as Slartibartfast pointed out.
I guess ultimately, my question is how do you know you are done on a 4k, and ok to proceed to the polishing stage (8k, pasted strop etc..)?
Is there some particular way the blade will behave at this stage, other than what I have mentioned (suction on stone, squeegeeing water, undercutting water). My initial thought was that I would stay on the 4k until I could pass the HHT, but like I said, I have razors that are certainly shave ready, but wont pass the HHT, so I am not convinced that is the appropriate test to determine graduation to the 8K.
I will go back and do some pyramids, but for those of you that dont use pyramids, my question still stands, what do you use as an indication that you are ok to move up from the 4k to 8k?

Originally Posted by Wid

You should be able to pop arm hair BEFORE going to the 4K, this is knowing you have a correct bevel set.

Not necessarily. It depends on your hair. Some hair types will not pop until after stropping, no matter how good the edge is. This is an individual thing.

What you should be looking for after the 1K is arm hair shaving. There will be some resistance, but the hair should shave. After the 4K, very little resistance & after the 8K, basically no resistance--they should fall off in a clump w/ no pulling at all. THen strop & test shave.

My typical advice to a newer honer trying to figure out when to go to the next grit is this:

Hone on your given stone until you think you are done. Test shave some arm hairs all along the edge, and remember how the razor cut. Any feedback you can use is good - how much pressure did you use, what did it feel like when the razor cut, what sound, did the hair pop or fall over or what, how close to the skin was the cut, etc etc.

Then go back to that same hone and do 15 or 20 strokes. Go back and do the same arm hair test again. If you notice any improvement at all, do 15 or 20 more strokes.

When you reach a point where you see no more improvement, REMEMBER WHAT THE ARM HAIR TEST WAS LIKE. If you are so inclined, you could also do the TPT (thumbpad test) to get that feeling in your mind. That is now your benchmark for that hone for the time being. (As you get better at honing, you may very well be able to get more out of each hone.)

Any time you are unsure if you are ready to move up, just run this test again. After a lot of razors, you'll start to learn what you need to do to get where a hone can take you, what an edge than is "there" feels like on the hone or thumbpad or whatever, and you won't need to do this as much.