Thread: Honing a smile.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

You are most welcome, glad they helped somebody out...

BTW What brand of razor size etc ??? Pics???

You can see in this one where the bevel looks like it was flattened like someone had breadknifed it. There were spots like that throughout the edge.

But hey it was free.

do not really see much of a smile there. I would get the magic marker our and play around with different strokes. I am surprised a normal x stroke is not hitting everything.

I am thinking a slightly angled x-stroke....

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

do not really see much of a smile there. I would get the magic marker our and play around with different strokes. I am surprised a normal x stroke is not hitting everything.

I am thinking a slightly angled x-stroke....

Its the angle and I just tried to take a better pic and the battery is dead in my camera. I will get a better pic of the smile later. The edge was so mangled that the swoop was the best at the time. Now that there is some simblence of an edge I might try a 45 X. There were fleat spots in the bevel and a very uneven edge. Also some pitting in the edge. I am just getting to good metal.

have you considered trying to get the stroke right on a higher grit hone? like a finisher maybe? that way you get the hang of the stroke without doing much more than polishing the razor, then when you're happy, take it back to the 1k? just to get the muscle memory. kepp marking and remarking till you're happy with the bevel pattern you see

Here is a better shot of the smile.

Originally Posted by tekbow

have you considered trying to get the stroke right on a higher grit hone? like a finisher maybe? that way you get the hang of the stroke without doing much more than polishing the razor, then when you're happy, take it back to the 1k? just to get the muscle memory. kepp marking and remarking till you're happy with the bevel pattern you see

I have gone to a 5k to see the progress. But I don't think its my stroke, I honestly believe its the previous abuse. I wish I had taken a pic before I started. I will try that though just in case.

This is more what the edge and bevel looked like when I started. This came from the same box of razors.

Here you might be able to see the inconsistency in the honing.

And I need a better camera.

Originally Posted by poppy926

I have gone to a 5k to see the progress. But I don't think its my stroke, I honestly believe its the previous abuse. I wish I had taken a pic before I started. I will try that though just in case.

No no, i meant before you got started, i just find it handy to see where i'm going with the honing and what i need to do, before i actually "do" anything. call it a trial stroke.

I see what your saying. Actually I did. I did about 15 strokes on a 5k to kinda polish the edge a little bit. For some reason it made sense to do that. What do ya know. I just thought at the time a swooping stroke would be my best bet for the best overall contact for this and then just stayed with it. I could see where the edge was hitting and the spine as well. When I moved to the 1k I started using a marker from time to time. Also I will go back up to the 5k to see the progress. Its been a great learning experience.

I'm siding with Slarti....

I think a heel slightly forward, straigh old X stroke would do the trick for that razor.....unless of course there's something I'm not catching, like a warp or whatever.....but all things being equal, like he said....not much of a smile, so a straight X with heel forward would be my first stroke out of the bag of tricks.