Thread: Micro-chip Removal

Hey all,

I got an ebay special to practice honing on (it's an old Palmer House Chicago, I guess these are either from the Palmer House Barber shop or maybe provided for guests) and it was actually in pretty good shape.

However after looking at it through my new Radioshack microscope (which I have to say I'm pretty pleased with) I noticed a jagged bit towards the toe. It was almost invisible to the naked eye, but looked pretty ugly under magnification.

So I went to the Norton 1k and did God knows how many circles and x's, and it did't seem to make a dent. I went ahead and moved to the DMT 325 (the spine was taped) and, again, it seemed like it took several hundred (maybe over a thousand) circles and passes to get it to where it was still there, but more like little hills and valleys instead of jaggs. It was then I lost patience and just moved up through the stones and shaved with it.

It shaved very nice, and I was very proud of myself, but I looked here at SRP and searched micro-chip removal and was amazed to see that others were getting them off with just a few circles on the 4k. What on earth am I doing wrong that it took me so much work on the 325? I seemed to be making good contact with the blade, and the blade doesn't seem warped at all, so I just can't figure it out.

Were they the same chips or perhaps new ones? Sometimes there is a reason a particular part of the edge has little chips - perhaps pitting extends into the bevel or whatever at that point and what seems initially like a small job becomes slightly larger. Sometimes a little finger pressure around the area can also help, but you should be careful of course.

Sorry, that's the best I can come up with on short notice

James.

[QUOTE=Jimbo;860933]Were they the same chips or perhaps new ones? Sometimes there is a reason a particular part of the edge has little chips - perhaps pitting extends into the bevel or whatever...[QUOTE]

Well, there wasn't any pitting or rust, but I wondered myself if perhaps what I was seeing were fresh chips forming, like maybe there was a weakness in the metal and it was just crumbling back as I honed. Is there any kind of test for that? Maybe if I black-markered the edge, I'd see if new chips were forming.

First and Foremost, I don’t have a microscope, I do use a loupe that I used back in the Dark Ages when pictures were actually captured on film, I only use it to check what these old eyes have trouble seeing these days. With that said, and I might get beat up here, I believe that you might have the order of inspection honing, and test shaving out of order.

Let’s say that you didn’t have a microscope and you had just honed the razor and found that you were very proud of you efforts! What’s the problem? You got a good/decent shave! Good Job!!

Now, if you had found that the shave wasn’t good and after re-honing, and still had the same results (a problem in a certain area) decided to explore possible problems, then the microscope might have been useful.

Always remember; The ULTIMATE ‘Test’ is the ‘Shave Test’!! If you get a a nice shave, that's all that matters!!

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Straight Razor Shaving!!

Smooth Shaving My Brother In Blades!!

Cuda, warmest greetings. I've had a spate of warped blades lately, some on some really nice hardware. Where there has been a single point of bend/warp, I treat the two sides of the warp separately, lightly transitioning over the high point. Where there are multiple high points, I've not found anything but pressure to ever reach the low spots. (I can hear others recommending a narrow hone - been there, done that - you'd need a hone the width of a pencil for some blades). When I can't avoid pressure, I will do my initial circle strokes with only as much pressure as it takes to reach the troughs. When I reverse the direction of the circles, pressure is reduced or eliminated so the high spots are treated w/ appropriate lack of pressure. Early X-strokes, usually repeat this pattern of pressure to contact the low spots, then no pressure to keep from overwhelming the high spots. I used to think pressure was a function of what grit I was not, and by the time you reach 8k or equivalent, no pressure should be used. That just doesn't work for a wavey blade. (watch me eat some crow here if he's talking about blade I honed!)

It depends on many factors. I've spent hours (thousands of strokes) with very aggressive hones (naniwa 1k w/ slurry, dmt-ef, dmt-c) removing 1/4 bevel deep chips when there are more problems than the chips themselves, e.g. bad grinding/bad previous honing, and I've decided to fix them the hard way.
If the steel was good and not particularly hard to abrade with your hone and you've been spending a lot of time, you most likely have been working on a different problem that is preventing your hone from touching the edge where the chip is.

I am leaning more to what Jimbo has said, you may be abrading away old bad steel only to expose more bad steel. I have seen this especially with Sheffields but it does happen to the newer/harder steels as well.

I used a microscope when learning how to hone. Overall, it saved me much time. But, on occasion, it cost me time because I was focusing too much on the characteristics of the blade bevel and edge during the progression to finer hones. Possibly, that happened to you in this instance.

When honing on the DMT 325, for example, by the very nature of the hone you will have "problems" that you can't fix. You can spend a lot of time removing these "problems", or just go on to the next hone. Often, the next hone will fix the previous hone problems. And, so on.

The trick is to know what are problems that must be fixed on your current hone, and what are "problems" that should be passed on to the next hone.

In a Norton hone company video they mentioned this concept. The guy openly admitted that "problems" existed after use of hones, but advised going to the next hone anyway. He called it "chasing the edge." In other words, the "problems" on one hone are passed on to the next hone. The next hone fixes things, leaving few "problems" than existed before. And so on, to the finishing stages.

Basically, on the last hone or two, and stropping, you have chased the edge problems into oblivion. Or, they are so small as to be inconsequential.