Maybe I'm Amazed

Never one to let a good music reference pass me by (in this case one of my favorite McCartney songs), it is none the less how I felt earlier today.

I am by no means an experienced honer, much less a honemeister, but I have been here for nearly 3 years and have absorbed much info on honing by osmosis. I've played with my coticule with some success, and have done many great touchups. I have an old Boker that I had tapped for the hones someday, and I had some time so I went to it with my new Norton set.

Started off with some bevel work on the 1k, wanting to try out the "20 circles to sharp" routine. Then I saw the blade was warped! One side sat perfectly on the hone, the other didn't, which made circles very difficult. BTW, how are you suppose to do circles under those circumstances? Anyway, I got to the point where the razor would shave arm hair, maybe not as effortlessly as I would have liked, but that warp had me thinking it may be as good as it gets.

I plowed ahead with a pyramid on the 4k/8k, starting with 25, having to do a rolling-x stroke on the one side. TPT felt okay, with the toe feeling a little less sharp than the rest. A couple more strokes and I called it a day with the hones. Then I got the itch to test shave....

I stropped 60 linen/60 leather (a process Bart used to advocate, which has worked for me before) and proceeded to shave my 3 days growth. The result? A very smooth, comfortable and irritation free shave with a blade that was somehow sharp equally heel to toe! I was simply not expecting that result, and that was directly off the 8k with no pastes, just stropping.

I think I will give it one more shave before I take it to my Naniwa 12k and chrome ox and see what that does for this old Boker. In the meantime, I know I got this far with my honing knowledge, but I can't help but think I somehow got lucky with this one considering the warp and all. Any thoughts?

Ryan

I have found the same. You can get a really good shave off the 8k Norton, without anything else. Try the nani 12k without the paste, so you can see how much the edge got better with the crox. Actually my honing is the same now, 1k bevel setting, norton 4k/8k, test shave, naniwa 12k, test shave. So far it was successful every time.

A very nice write up!
It really is quite educational to do a shave or two off of an 8K or similar.
I tried it out too soon the first time. Not very comfortable.
But that was what I needed. I knew then that my bevel set and/or sharpening wasn't up to snuff.

Honing is such a rewarding activity!
It takes time to learn, but, luckily for me, the road on the way to becoming any good at it, is rather fun:)

I tried it on one blade, but the ensuing bevel was so unsightly I never even tried to shave with it.

Just an update...

After last weeks surprisingly great shave (off the 8k) I got back to the Boker this afternoon to give it the finishing treatment. For no other reason than it had seen one shave already, I went back to the Norton 8k and did about 12 laps. Followed that with another 12 on my Naniwa 12k, and then 10 laps of chrome ox. The difference in the TPT was substantial, even right off the Nani. Man, I love that stone.....

Anyway, I then stropped and shaved. I knew from the first stroke at my right sideburn that it was going to be good shave. Buttery smooth, awesome shave. That razor now shaves with the best of 'em.

I'm still quite surprised, since due to the warp I thought I would need more work on the bevel. But after two great shaves I figure why mess with a good thing? But for the future, if anyone has any suggestions how to do circles effectively with a warped blade I'd be interested. Or perhaps half strokes or x strokes are more effective in that case?

rolling half strokes, rolling Xs, or rolling circles.
you can do many little circles up and down the blade which seems easy enough to me, or one big circle with each rolling stroke i.e. rolling half strokes.

At one point, when I was working on one, I did some "selective taping" (I have now patented this system so be careful to reference my extensive work in this area in any scholarly papers.) I tried to determine exactly where taping might be beneficial and tape only those areas.

On the circles I agree with espz, a sort of rolling circle but maybe not as pronounced. Depending on the blade. Nice write up and all. I am sometimes surprised at how good a shave I can get off of a humble 8k. Randy told me that if it won't shave well off of the 8 there is little value in going to the 12. Sort of like icing on dog doo. :)

I shaved off my 8k shapton plenty of times, and to be honest the 16 does little difference to the shave itself. It sure makes the razor keener, but as far as I can gather the difference in shave feel is marginal. Sometimes I actually prefere to stop at the 8k, especially on softer steels.
Now, warped blades on the other hand, are a real PITA. I have 2 that I'm currently trying to get sharp and I keep coming up short on them. I am rather picky tho, and unless the edge is visibly perfect under magnification I won't even try to shave test them... but after reading your writeup maybe I should see where they are at with a shave even if my microscope says otherwise.
Thanks for sharing Ryan.