Thread: Honing difference - meister vs newb

Originally Posted by fcohio

i am anxious waiting for enlightenment
FredC.

Well, seems to me Redwood already enlightened us.

Of course, I understand that the spine thickness / the angle determines the bevel, I just had not connected it to extended use. Seems that quite a bit of spine wear shall be necessary, btw, to achieve the wide bevel

CHeers
Ivo

Even if spine and edge wear are perfectly proportional, the blade gets slightly thicker as it becomes narrower/is honed away.
I believe this is probably the biggest factor, though incompetent honing by previous honers is quite likely, too.

Redwoood

I think the bottom line here is that as a general rule the bevel width does not effect the shaving ability of a razor. I have some razors with really tiny bevels and they give great shaves and I have razors with huge bevels that give equally great shaves and I have wide and narrow beveled razors that both give crummy shaves (or did when I got them). The only constant I've found is that if I get an Eboy special in a typical 6/8s or 5/8s razor and it doesn't respond to conservative honing and it has a narrow bevel I will try and enlarge that bevel abit and that is what it usually takes to get it into shape. On the other hand if I get an Eboy special that already has a wide bevel and it doesn't shave very well it is rare that conservative honing doesn't bring it back into shape.

So what am I saying here. I think that if a razor shaves well with a narrow bevel thats fine but if it doesn't then widening the bevel is usually the medicine it needs. Clear as mud?

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

The only constant I've found is that if I get an Eboy special in a typical 6/8s or 5/8s razor and it doesn't respond to conservative honing and it has a narrow bevel I will try and enlarge that bevel abit and that is what it usually takes to get it into shape.

I've found some ebay razors where the edge metal seemed to have oxidized internally or something -- the metal looked good, but when you put it on the hone it crumbles and chips away. The cure for these is to keep honing until you get to good steel. The microscope really helps with this.

Can't stay...bye bye, now...

Bill,

Very nice post. I really appreciate you sharing that. I wonder if your razors "draw" on a strop then? I have a theory about strop draw that your honing technique could answer.

Its nice when you know enough about straights to really see the valuable posts. This one was gold!

Originally Posted by urleebird

Redwood has it down pretty darn close.

I find that the width of the cutting edge is directly proportional to three characteristics

• Thickness at the spine
• Width of the blade
• And... thickness of the blade at the cutting edge

The third characteristic, I think, having the most to do with it. To illustrate, notice that the closer a blade gets to the profile of a wedge shaped blade, the wider the cutting edge winds up being.

In addition, I probably break everyone else's rules here when it comes to honing. I use considerable pressure at the beginning of each stage of honing on each of the stones I use with and emphasis on the edge rather than the spine. I only lighten up on the pressure with the last 5 -10 strokes on each one of them. ( I normally use only 3 stones )

This process creates an opportunity to address the very edge of the cutting bevel when it is time to strop. To put it more simply, the back edge of the bevel doesn't have to follow the plane of the front end of it to have great cutting ability.

The extra amount removed from the back of the bevel on a straight razor edge would only be recognizable under some pretty good magnification. But it is often enough to get a very good cutting edge, especially on some of the lesser quality steels. This means that only the very edge of the blade is addressed... not necessarily the entire cutting bevel. ( There... my secret is out )

The width of the bevel, however, is not an indication on how well the razor will shave. I have some with a 32nd edge that will shave the same as one that is near an 8th. The steel is also a big factor.

This is true on a lot of razors, but not so much with the full hollow grinds on wider blades. Looking at the cross section of one of these will reveal that there looks to be up to a quarter inch of parallel blade thickness before the upward sweep of the grind starts making it thicker. This would mean that you would have a narrower cutting bevel until you honed to that upward sweep as Redwood correctly points out.

If anyone wonders, I sharpen a razor with this progression

• 1,000 grit (only if the blade is really dull)
• 4,000 grit Norton
• 8,000 grit Norton
• .5 green pasted leather honing bed (Hand American)
• plain smooth leather on a honing bed (Hand American)
• touch up on one of Tony's strops

Originally Posted by urleebird

This process creates an opportunity to address the very edge of the cutting bevel when it is time to strop. To put it more simply, the back edge of the bevel doesn't have to follow the plane of the front end of it to have great cutting ability.

The extra amount removed from the back of the bevel on a straight razor edge would only be recognizable under some pretty good magnification. But it is often enough to get a very good cutting edge, especially on some of the lesser quality steels. This means that only the very edge of the blade is addressed... not necessarily the entire cutting bevel. ( There... my secret is out )

Bill, I don't understand this. Can you rephrase that or illustrate?

Normally the bevel runs exactly flush with the angle from edge to spine. A long triangle if you will, separated by what would be the hollow of the grind. What he is describing is honing the back end of the bevel lower than the line between egde and spine. This way the back of the bevel is out of the way and the razor rests directly on the edge when stropping, not on the edge and bevel as it does when I hone a razor. I assume you would have to strop a razor as such with a feather light touch.

Originally Posted by mparker762

I've found some ebay razors where the edge metal seemed to have oxidized internally or something -- the metal looked good, but when you put it on the hone it crumbles and chips away. The cure for these is to keep honing until you get to good steel. The microscope really helps with this.

I've noticed this on most of the old razors I get on Ebay. I first noticed it when an edge that seemed OK on the 4K suddenly develop microscopic chips when I went to the 8K. It seems that with the thinner edge the oxidized metal didn'y have enough strength and just collapsed. After I honed it the way you described, I got a beautiful edge.

Then I went back and checked all of my old Ebay razors and noticed that most of them had this problem to some degree. I was ableto improvr the shave even on ones that were OK.