Oh My Goodness What HAVE I Done!

So this is my second weekend trying to hone (Norton 4/8, Shapton 16). The razor (Emil Kronenberg) was pretty much blunt by the time I'd finished removing some surface rust with wet and dry etc. I tried last weekend and ended up firstly with a bread knife, and next with a razor that cut but tugged. And then put it away until now.

So today I asked some questions here, read some more, watched more vids and emailed a friend.

So. I did two 'aggressive' pyramids and a 'conservative' one, with special attention at the heel. I noticed the heel area would essentially 'fail' the TNT, so I worked that area a bit, mainly because I like to use the heel a lot when shaving. I tried to REALLY concentrate; like I was honing a feather made of glass. If I messed up (like the edge passed over the stone uneven) I went back a step. I did 5 passes on the 16k after the pyramids.

Even though I'd shaved this morning, I wanted to test this blade at 7 O'clock tonight. I showered as per normal, put on some 'Oscar' pre-[shave oil, made a mix of Speick and Musgo Real and glycerin (went a bit weird on me; went really frothy) and shaved.

At first I thought, "Oh, bread knife (blunt) again", but then I realised (a) I couldn't feel it and (b) Even though I couldn't feel it it was cutting. Cutting I tell you! Cutting and SMOOTH!

Now I know it's not a REAL test as I shaved this morning (well, 10AM; had a late one last night) but this was a smooooth shave. I also did ATG on the neck and under the jawline and got arguably the BEST result I've got with a ATG. I am SO SO happy!

I'll need to give it another whirl Monday AM, and maybe it could do with one or two more passes on the 16k, but this was a REALLY smooth shave. I actually think MAYBE this razor is a [expletive] NICE razor? Feels very very nice... actually...Anybody have one of these (Emil Kronenberg Sen 'Edgerite'?

I'm a little frustrated by the lack of information on razors. I really want to know a lot about the makers and times, etc. I can't WAIT to see how the frameback I'm getting shaves. I've only got three razors at the moment (frameback travelling here as I type) but it's so interesting how different they all are to shave with.

Thanks so much to all the guys who advised me; esp Nathan and Axel... :rock:

There is also a book, Goins Encyclopedia of Cutlery Markings. You can find it on the bay right now for a reasonable price. I keep meaning to pick one up, but there's always something else that manages to be first in line!

Good work on the razor. It is a really nice feeling to shave with something that you honed yourself.

Congratulations, feels great shaving with a razor you cleaned up and honed yourself. Keep at it and you'll be happy with your blades for a long time to come.

Well, Carl... you did good...

Now quick! What do you call that thing you rubbed your razor on and got it to shave?

3, 2, 1...

wait, wait, wait...

Carl honed his blade with his 'wait' and all was well...

:D

Grats! You've gotta be feeling good about your work - for all the right reasons! I'm far from expert, but 30-40 blades honed from now, you'll get edges more reliably. A couple hundred and you'll be able to get decent edges from most razors. The guys here have been invaluable to my awkward attempts, Keep asking the questions and it will get easier, and the edges will get better. You have some REALLY good guys down under there to get help from. You might want to connect with them in person for some time with the stones.

Thank heavens you finally got it right! :)

Congratulations!

Congrats, Carl!

Are you doing all this without a 1k hone? That takes a lot of patience.

I think you'll find the frameback relatively easy to hone. That's been my experience with them.

Best wishes

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carlmaloschneider

So this is my second weekend trying to hone (Norton 4/8, Shapton 16). The razor (Emil Kronenberg) was pretty much blunt by the time I'd finished removing some surface rust with wet and dry etc. I tried last weekend and ended up firstly with a bread knife, and next with a razor that cut but tugged. And then put it away until now.

---

Have you got any rust protectors? I've got tuf-glide, used by the U.S. coast guard for awhile to protect their precious guns. Some of the rust and stain removers also put a semi-protective coat, or end-reacted subtle tarnish that resists further corrosion. Really, you should let some tarnish develop on your razor, it's a tool for shaving, not a collectible (at least at this point).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carlmaloschneider

Thanks so much to all the guys who advised me; esp Nathan and Axel... :rock:

---

Yer welcome. Now I'll help you in another way: don't play too much with mixing creams/soaps and glycerin! Let it be and develop a relationship to the single product. Besides, when you're in the outback noshing on crocodile or kangaroo meat with your Foster's beer you won't have all your shaving supplies handy, you'll have to shave like a man, dammit! Even better, you'll shave like an Australian straight shaving man!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Blix

Thank heavens you finally got it right! :)

Congratulations!

---

Yeah, 'cause maybe now I'll shut up for a bit! :-)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AxelH

...Yer welcome. Now I'll help you in another way: don't play too much with mixing creams/soaps and glycerin! Let it be and develop a relationship to the single product. Besides, when you're in the outback noshing on crocodile or kangaroo meat with your Foster's beer you won't have all your shaving supplies handy, you'll have to shave like a man, dammit! Even better, you'll shave like an Australian straight shaving man!

---

Oh I DO like mixing, but this morning went with just TOBS Eton College by itself (and Proraso pre shave). I don't ALWAYS mix them, but it is fun to mix. Of course I'll be using the straight razor to KILL the croc and 'roos. Have you even eaten Kangaroo meat? It's really nice. I hate Fosters, much rather like Stella Artois, Peroni or Henninger :-)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by roughkype

Congrats, Carl!

Are you doing all this without a 1k hone? That takes a lot of patience.

I think you'll find the frameback relatively easy to hone. That's been my experience with them.

Best wishes

---

Yeah, without a 1k, just the 4/8 and 16k Shapton. I won't NORMALY do all this, I reckon in the future I'll only drop to the 8k, but who knows? BTW, I'm finding the edges off the Shapton 16k REALLY smooth. I gave the W&B 5 strokes last night; REALLY softly (with tape as I should have before) and this morning it was incredible; I couldn't stop and had to do more ATG than I've ever done before.

I think my next razor will be a faux frameback; I've seen some really nice looking Klas Törnblom's with really nice flowing lines...

I think I've found my 'calling'....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carlmaloschneider

I think my next razor will be a faux frameback; I've seen some really nice looking Klas Törnblom's with really nice flowing lines...

---

Wait, wait, Carl! How many blades will this be? I checked back through old threads and yes it WAS you who so strenuously insisted, against a whole bunch of us, that you only needed a three-razor case:

Quote:

---

Yes, I know, but I'm a minimalist sort of fellow, I really do wish to stop at three. For me I think that is enough. I think I'll go for the three razor case and be done with it... :-)

---

Ah, yes, as another poster in that thread put it, denial strong in that thread was. Yesss.

It's gonna be tough to figure out which three warrant space in that case.

That's OK, I originally thought I'd have one or two, then came RAD and HAD and, very sneakily, SAD. Soaps, not Strops. I still only have three strops, God help me, though one's a modular. And my Charnley will arrive in a week or so. That should mean the end of my hone collecting, shouldn't it? Though there are an awful lot of other interesting English and Welsh hones out there... Without getting up and going to check, I couldn't give you a count on anything but the strops.

I'm glad you're having fun with all this.

Best wishes,

Tim

carl you done well and the way i see it once you what sharp is and how to get there it makes it an easier job but i must admit being from south aus i thought you'd be drinking coopers with your roo,i'm a big coopers fan vintage and pale ale my favourite and the pale goes grouse with any game meats even croc,i love the look of faux framebacks and have a wosty which is just awesome but my joseph elliot doesn't quite shave as well,i think it's the width but it still looks great

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by roughkype

Wait, wait, Carl! How many blades will this be? I checked back through old threads and yes it WAS you who so strenuously insisted, against a whole bunch of us, that you only needed a three-razor case:



Ah, yes, as another poster in that thread put it, denial strong in that thread was. Yesss.

It's gonna be tough to figure out which three warrant space in that case.

That's OK, I originally thought I'd have one or two, then came RAD and HAD and, very sneakily, SAD. Soaps, not Strops. I still only have three strops, God help me, though one's a modular. And my Charnley will arrive in a week or so. That should mean the end of my hone collecting, shouldn't it? Though there are an awful lot of other interesting English and Welsh hones out there... Without getting up and going to check, I couldn't give you a count on anything but the strops.

I'm glad you're having fun with all this.

Best wishes,

Tim

---

I don't normally TYPE LOl, but, well, LOL.
I know, it's sad. I'm trying to convince myself that the fourth razor is my 'bush' razor, for when I go camping, etc. But I'm not winning. I'm thinking a Klas Törnblom faux frameback and maybe a 4/8 or even 3/8 Filarmonica. A seven day set doesn't seem like a BAD thing...(except I'd need a new case...)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alucard73

carl you done well and the way i see it once you what sharp is and how to get there it makes it an easier job but i must admit being from south aus i thought you'd be drinking coopers with your roo,i'm a big coopers fan vintage and pale ale my favourite and the pale goes grouse with any game meats even croc,i love the look of faux framebacks and have a wosty which is just awesome but my joseph elliot doesn't quite shave as well,i think it's the width but it still looks great

---

Oh, yes, of course I like Coopers! Grew up on it (sparkling Ale) when there was nothing but Sparkling and Stout. Had a Stout day at the pub on Saturday AM playing pool with my young son. And then came home and honed (I just said that last bit so I was on topic....)

The problem with a three razor set... is well.....it's only three razors.

So many razors have beautiful lines, stunningly deep stamps, or just that there is some from of mystical draw between the razor itself and you. It's a great feeling to say "oh my, I must have that....it will be an excellent addition".

You know, maybe there's a previously undiagnosed disorder here, too. I wondered about it when I got traction honing. EHD (Escessive Honing Disorder), which makes you want to hone and hone and hone some more. So you have to buy more razors, or dull your own over and over. And I think we can all agree that it's a waste to dull a perfectly good edge.

Here's my proposed etiology: RAD-->HAD-->EHD-->worse RAD and HAD and so on until you break the cycle or the cycle breaks you.

Yes, you're right, roughkype, I'm actually thinking about honing again tonight, the shave with the Kronenberg this morning wasn't the best, needs more work...

It really does feel great when you get it right. And even better the next time when you get it 'righter'. And the next time...and the next...
Man, I feel like honing.

Hi, just thought I'd say that after getting some more excellent advice from Maxi on tape and such, and after honing the Kronenberg on the weekend with LLIMITED success I evaluated my work. The Kronenberg wasn't up to scratch, I still need more work on that. The Burrell on Tuesday was as nice as always; but I hadn't really touched that to the hone. Well, not really, as I didn't use tape and I reckon it's probably have been honed with tape (so I wasn't really doing anything with the few laps on the 16k Shapton that I'd done). Same deal with the W&B.
So I re-did all three last night (just a refresh). I just did 5 laps on the 8k Norton followed by 3 on the a6k Shapton. I made sure I concentrated really hard. I also made sure i wiped the blade well after the 8k and before the 16k, just to make sure I didn't 'migrate' any courser particles from the 8k to the 16k.
I shaved witht he W&B this mornign and with one pass WTG it resulted in very close to a BBS shave, as good as it was when I go it!

Great news! Sounds like you're doing better than most of us at attaining the Wisdom of Low Lap Count.

RoughkypeMy reason for embracing WLLC is that I also have FFU (Fear of [expletive] it Up), I've heavy handedly destroyed many, many MANY previously beautiful things in my time...One time, at age 19, my twin brother decided to remove the thermostat in his HQ Holden (Google it) 1/2 way between Woomera and Port Augusta (or there abouts; it's basically desert (Google Maps it)) to 'aid in cooling'. Unfortunately I was the one who needed to prove how much benefit I was getting from weight lifting and stripped the bolts holding the thermostat housing. We had to drive a couple of Ks, stop for and hour, drive a coupe of Ks, stop for an hour, etc for many, many MANY kilometers...So I'm trying to be really, really REALLY careful...

Are those Meercats???

I wish. Those'd be some bigass scary meerkats. My hands would be up because they told me to put them there. But no, they're a friend's golden retrievers. I was Guest Conductor.

I had a long, sad motorcycle story begin with a helicoil that came out on a spark plug. It lacks the drama of the desert and the narrative assistance of a twin brother, but shares the heartbreak of stripped threads.

Actually, I'm not sure it was ALL the way from Woomera to Port Augusta, the years may have embellished the tale...
I really think I did way too many laps when I first got the hones a few weeks ago. I now understand those who buy cheap, rusty, blunt razors and do them up...
I wonder how often I should do the 5 laps/3 laps thing? Once a fortnight? Once a month? Just as a general rule, knowing later the feel of the blade will dictate..



Attachment 77203

The way I did it was once I was regularly using an open razor to shave with, I would generally use that razor exclusively/monogamously until it wasn't providing the closest shaves. It never got to tugging or skipping about (unless the lather dried, which would be my fault, not the razor's), just not cutting as close as it used to, and the shaves would take a little longer. Then I could use another razor to compare to and experience the dramatic difference, or refresh on a hone.

When you stick to a single razor you can try to discern it's hardness, resistance to edge deterioration, longevity before refreshing, etc. It can be an interesting part to shaving. You are probably aware that for razors that have been overhoned (i.e. without tape) the angle of the edge may be beyond the metal's structural stability, so you'll lose the edge quicker.

Yeah, that may be an idea Axel, but presently I'm enjoying rotating the razors I have. When I got my second razor after using the first for about two months without honing, I really did notice the difference. I used the SECOND one this morning after refreshing all three the other day (5x8k, 3x16k) and it was almost back to how it was when I go it. I don't know if it's just the razor, or just because it was the first, but it seems the other two haven't matched it for overall sharpness. Then again, it could be just that combination of thickness and size. The first, a Burrell Top Flight is a think a full hollow 5/8, while the W&B is a 4/8 and less 'flexible'. The Emil Kronenberg is also a 5/8 but maybe a 1/2 hollow (I know those terms are pretty subjective). That extra amount oh hollowness, and as you mention maybe the steel, makes all the difference. I didn't know about the 'over honing'.

I don't think the angle change caused by tape is enough to cause, prevent, or otherwise influence overhoning. Excessive honing pressure, such that it deflects the blade and you thin the metal behind the edge rather than thinning the edge, could cause that edge breakdown. Honing to a grit finer than the steel will support (e.g., to 30k for a Sheffield blade) could also cause it. I don't know if 16k is pushing it for Sheffield steel; my finest known grit is the 12k Naniwa.

I just honed and tested a full hollow 4/8 for someone. It shaved OK on the broad easy bits, excelled in the tight spots like under my jawline and under my nose, but was pretty squirrelly everywhere else. Definitely a more difficult shaver than a 5/8 or 6/8 of any grind.

I'd guess that combinations of grind and steel hardness affect the wear rates of different razors. Carl, I'm afraid you're going to have to buy at least six more razors, two apiece to match the size and grind of your current three. Of each trio, one should be a Case (or a TI, if you're feeling really flush), one should be from Solingen, and one should be from Sheffield. Then you can compare hardness/longevity within each size and grind, and size/grind across hardnesses.

This is your mission, if you choose to accept it. This post will self-destruct in fifteen seconds.

16k pushing it for Sheffield steel? Does that mean I may be incorrect using the Shapton 16k on the W&B? I WAS thinking of getting a 4/8 a while ago, but now I think for me a 5/8 full hollow is perfect, not that there's anything that is really perfect. I'm about to get a Klas Törnblom frameback, so that will be interesting. I don't feel I can accept the mission. And what is a 'Case'? I do like TI razors, esp the Evide Sonnant 5/8 in white. There's no way I can be married AND buy six more razors, but 3 is possible, giving a total of seven. I'd then need to sell or swap my new three razor case and maybe buy the Dovo 7 razor case...
Maybe I could always cull the four razors to three; the Emil Kronenberg would be the one to go, I think...

I only use a finishing stone, maybe 6-10 passes, every other month now. More often with less skill is normal. The 16k too much concept is strange business to me.

Hmmm, AFDavis11, do you need to hone other than that, or are you saying the 16k every other month suffices to keep the edge?

I'm trying to visualise why 16k maybe 'too much' for some steel. I guess as the smoothness of a surface increases, 'ridges' and 'grooves' are removed. Maybe 'ridges' and grooves' act as buttresses just like in architecture? It would be nice to have some idea what I'm talking about, sometimes...

Hey Carl,

I don't *know* that 16k is too much for Sheffield steel, but if you find your Sheffield edges break down quickly that may be the problem.

Case was an American manufacturer. The American blades (Genco, Case, etc.) tend to be harder than English or German steel. Because of that, you can hone them out onto finer grits and that skinny skinny edge is still strong enough to cut hairs for more than one shave.

A hair is as tough as a strand of copper of equal diameter, for a real-world reference.

I like your buttress idea. It's all kinda hard to wrap your head around, isn't it? Steel is steel... until it gets really really skinny. Then it's really really skinny steel and acts all funny like.

It'd be nice if Glen would chime in on this thread... if I'm blowing wind up your kilt about the 16k being too much for Sheffield, he'd be the one to call me out.

Gotta go pick up a pizza now.

Oh, OK, if that ends up being the case maybe I'll stop at the 8k? I'm loath to buy another stone. American steel harder than English or German? Oh? I wonder why? This is all getting very technical. I was thinking German and English were the ones to get. Though I've heard Swedish steel is hard, which is one reason I'm awaiting the next razor with anticipation. Actually, as much as I love the W&B, it's 'different' than the Burrell. To add another item to confuse this even more, would it be a little true that softer steel is smoother (to the face) steel? That is, is harder steel always better? I'm guessing it may keep the edge longer, but may there be a trade off for feel? All very esoteric I know...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by carlmaloschneider

I'm loath to buy another stone.

---

WHAT!?? AAGGhh! Begone Foul Demon! I cast thee...

I haven't sorted out the comfort factor yet. That comes down to how the steel pairs up with your hones and your honing. Again, if Glen (gsixgun) was reading this thread he could bring some focus. Someone with his experience (or Lynn's, too) knows how to draw the smoothest shave from any edge.

I've lucked into one no-name blade that plays just perfectly with my hones and honing. It is the Miraculous Hair Squeegee, the thing Arthur and his Knights were actually looking for when they made up that whole Grail story. I'm pretty sure it's been rescaled.

The only Swedish blade I've got is a minimal Berg frameback, whose every detail says "entry-level price point." It might have been produced for the Swedish army. It's a fine little shaver, but I'm reluctant to judge Swedish steel in general based on it. I think a lot of Japanese straights used Swedish steel, too, and that Dovo's stainless is Swedish. I missed out on a nice affordable Swede on the Classifieds a week or two ago. Hesitated and was lost. I'm interested to hear what you think of yours.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by roughkype

...WHAT!?? AAGGhh! Begone Foul Demon! I cast thee...

---

Yeah, heresy, I know, sorry...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by roughkype

...I missed out on a nice affordable Swede on the Classifieds a week or two ago. Hesitated and was lost. I'm interested to hear what you think of yours...

---

I'll let you know when I get it. I guess as always beauty is in the eye of the beholder (and feeler). What looks right and feels right is all that matters. I keep raving a little about how much I like my humble Burrell that cost less than 50 bucks. For me, the main point of all this is that I shall never (NEVER! NEVER!) go back to using those little plastic things. My young son laughs each time a shaving ad comes on TV, 'cause I always shout with utter disdain "That's not SHAVING!!"...

Came across a bag full of the tacky little green and white plastic tykes in the bathroom drawer the other day. The horror, the horror...