On the brink here. It was shaving arm hair 3 hours ago.

Ok fellahs. I'm not having fun anymore. lol. At first, I didn't know, but thought I knew. Then I knew I didn't know, but was still, through persistence, and weeks of honing, able to make a razor (ONE RAZOR)shave ready. Now, I just can't do it any longer. I will not spend 2 weeks, 2-4 hours per day honing one razor any more. I've watched the videos, I've done the steps, I've used all the little tips and tricks SRP can muster...I really am just not getting it. Those few stellar performers in my line up just must have been so close to shave ready when I picked them up, that I couldn't make it worse. I need help. Is there anyone on here that can teach me how to sharpen a razor to shaving sharp that's closer than 3.5 hours from Mattoon, IL? As much as I'd like to have Lynn's help, it's a really long haul for someone in a 4x4 on a fixed income. lol. I've had some of my edges evaluated and I'd consider it confirmed that I know what shaving sharp feels like. But this is ridiculous. With this amount of time invested per razor, all learning goes out the window. There's just no way to catalog 25000 strokes on one razor, and interpret that data. It's obvious to me, that I did something wrong 95 percent of the time, and something right 5 percent of the time. But somebody is gonna have to stand over me barking orders in order for me to get it I guess. AAAAAARRRGH!!! Sorry for the rant...


If you skipped all that up there: Anybody closer than 3.5 hours from Mattoon, IL willing to teach me how to sharpen a razor in an efficient manner? This is 5 months I've been deluding myself...

Joe,

While I'm many miles and many states away and I can't help you on account I'm not very good at this honing thing, I feel your pain and I want to offer my commiseration to you.

Obviously you have the drive and patience, but... a week stroking that stone, brother? You state that you tried everything; since you don't go in detail I will share my experience and mistakes and see if you can draw a parallel and get on the right track.

I'll skip over the coticule unicot honing. That was a one off experience that took me around five hours to, er..., shave ready in the sense I shaved with it. I will say no more other than I'm not a unicot fan. Yet.

My first mistake was to not have a proper loupe to check the bevel. It was also the biggest, because if you don't have a good bevel you will never, ever, in your life get that blade to the keenness you need to shave with it.

My second mistake was to overlook the sharpie method to verify you are stroking the blade flat and proper on the stone. Search for it to get detailed instructions, but in a nutshell it consists of setting a basic bevel, painting it with a sharpie and giving it one stroke. Check it with the loupe and if your stroke is faulty, it'll be painfully obvious.

My third mistake was to assume I knew the pyramid method from just counting. It took me several askings until I came up with the secret, which I here bestow upon you for absolutely no charge. Testing. Do your 4k rotation, go to the 8K, TEST. If bad, go back to the beginning. If you blindly go back and forth, and even by chance you are there, when you go down in grit you undo your work. The pyramid is repeatable and reliable, and I suspect Lynn meant it to be easy for the noobs to get there easily. (Thank you Lynn; we are all in your debt.)

Fourth mistake, if you are keeping track. Not giving it a rest. I was so intent on getting there, and not seeing where my mistakes were that I was blinded by pride and determination. Walking away is sometimes a good thing. You come back not so tired, not so frustrated and, yes, angry, and you may just catch your mistake.

And that's it. I'm assuming your stones are properly lapped and in good trim, because I don't think you can get shave ready from an uneven stone.

Best of luck,


Marcos

Maybe someone could do a skype session with you, help diagnose the flaws in your technique and give a few pointers. Id do it, but I dont feel entirely qualified...

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you just need to buy more stones is all:)

what stone are you using for bevel setting?

I get the impression from reading your post that you've done alright with other razors ? FWIW, sometimes you'll get one that is a beast to hone. The fact that it was cutting arm hair and then with further honing wasn't, makes me wonder if you didn't miscue somewhere along the line.

The reason Stefan (mainaman) asked you what bevel setter you're using ..... IMHO ...... is because in many cases the bevel set isn't adequate and the honing that follows is essentially continuing the bevel set on stones that are too fine to do the job. Anyway, post a pic of both sides of the blade and maybe someone can assess the condition to see if that may have something to do with the issue.

Come down to Cape. It will be worth it. Think of the hours of frustration that will go away.........:rock:

Pixelfixed, you read my posts! lol.

Thanks to everyone so far that helped. Mainaman, if I can't make it work on one of my ridiculously large number of coticules, then I use an India stone. I do try my hardest to stay with only coticules though. I have issues keeping the slurry on the stone, which I've yet to figure out, even after watching Liam do it a thousand times. Which makes me a constant slurry refresher. And that could be another hindrance. My theory though was that even if I didn't use any slurry at all, I would eventually get a sharp edge. I may have miscalculated tremendously on how long "eventually" might be.

JimmyHAD, it's still shaving arm hair. lol. It just won't shave facial hair. It'll pop arm and leg hair all day. In certain portions of the blade it'll fell them without noise. But it won't shave...not a lick. I'll do some more fighting with it tomorrow, and then post a pic of it. I spent some time talking to Randydance on Skype this evening, and he gave me some pointers. And told me some things that I hadn't really thought of. And yeah, I have put IMHO great edges on a few razors in a little bit of time. But I'm not gaining any repeatability, or efficiency. So I went a little crazy, but you all are quick to jump to the rescue for sure. Thanks so much!

IMO you need to get a fast bevel setter, sometimes as Jimmy said you can get a razor that is really tough to hone, in that case a fast synthetic is very useful.

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IMO you need to get a fast bevel setter, sometimes as Jimmy said you can get a razor that is really tough to hone, in that case a fast synthetic is very useful.

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+1 on getting a good 1k bevel setter. I have a crown and sword thats a real beast to hone and my naniwa comes in handy for bevel setting.

Don't spend so many hours honing! you'll go mad, spend an hour a day, like you said the funs went out the window.
Do an hour a day and see if you can set a bevel, if you can do it in an hour good, if you can't, try tomorrow.
Hone happy, and if your not happy find something to make you happy, then hone.

You must have shoulders like a farm boy that lifts cows for fun by now with all that honing ;)

regards alex

Joe,

I feel your pain. That was my experience early on too although I wasn't quite as . . . uh . . . persistent. I did find that putting it away for a couple days helped relieve the frustration and sometimes my next attempt worked.

My breakthrough came from going to Denver when gssixgun visited. Seeing him do it and asking questions about the fine points of his technique helped immensely!!! My biggest learning was that I was taking the mantra of "no pressure" at the bevel setting step way to seriously. A little more pressure at that stage saved 100s and 100s of strokes. After that, "no pressure" is critical.

I also found that on the finer stones, I was sometimes lifting the spine just a little on my stroke away from my body. Every time I did this, it probably ruined the previous 10 or 20 strokes.

If you could take Lynn up on his offer, I'd bet it would be worth your time (think about all the time you have already invested) and very enjoyable.

Good luck

I feel for you to bro. I took a dulls 1964 communist razor and made it a killer, then went to refresh my schulze,a killer, and made it dead (not really but it shaves like a casterated mule now).....Honing is quite the fickle mistress.

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Originally Posted by regularjoe

Pixelfixed, you read my posts! lol. JimmyHAD, it's still shaving arm hair. lol. It just won't shave facial hair. It'll pop arm and leg hair all day. In certain portions of the blade it'll fell them without noise. But it won't shave...not a lick. I'll do some more fighting with it tomorrow, and then post a pic of it. I spent some time talking to Randydance on Skype this evening, and he gave me some pointers. And told me some things that I hadn't really thought of. And yeah, I have put IMHO great edges on a few razors in a little bit of time. But I'm not gaining any repeatability, or efficiency. So I went a little crazy, but you all are quick to jump to the rescue for sure. Thanks so much!

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If it will pop arm hair and still won't shave, maybe it's not the blade but your shaving technique that's at fault. I took the first Razor that I had honed to Larry. I had never owned a shave ready blade and I wanted him to evaluate it and fix the edge. To my great surprise he told me that the razor didn't need any work at all. Then we talked about shave technique and things started to improve for me very fast. I've managed to shave myself for a month now without blood and can do 3 passes without irritation. I've only been shaving for 3 months, so this is accomplishment is making my hatband tight.

I may be way off base here, but since you sound very frustrated I thought I would throw this out there.

Setting a correct bevel is 90% of a good edge. As others have said, learn to recognize a proper bevel and invest in a good stone.

For me, working my stones is zen time for me. I don't focus so much on the end result, but more on the journey and what I am doing. Once I learned good technique and had the right stones, it just seemed to come together.

Thanks Crotalus. Never hurts to throw something out like that, because originally it was what I was hoping for. I had that happen to me too, right about the same time in my SR journey. And I'll admit that on a few occassions it most definitely was a lack of skill in shaving that caused my frustration. But this razor wasn't sharp. It was cutting arm hair, I'm assuming because of a toothy edge. At any rate, tonight is the shave test, and I'm hopeful.

Jerry: If you'd have typed that in capital letters, underlined it, boldfaced it, and wrapped it, it still wouldn't have enough emphasis. Recognizing a proper bevel is something I'm still working on, and getting better. But it must be considered that you can polish a dull edge just as nicely as you can polish a sharp edge. It came down to putting the microscope away, getting a big bright light, shutting my mouth, and opening my ears and eyes a little more. I'm still by no means confident, but I'm learning. Randydance is giving me pointers, and advice on skype also. Somehow words have more weight with me when I hear them instead of read them. Gotta work on that too I suppose. So all that said, it's good I had a little episode, because it forced me to recognize my own inability to fix this with reading and will power. Most people wouldn't beat their fists against the wall for four months before asking for help. lol. Anyhow, thanks to all!

No where near the hone artist I strive to become in a few yrs,but what helps me in the quest is to look at taking a blade from dull to shave ready as about 250 points (maybe more) of actual contact,all of which need to be perfectally executed.From the first stroke of the bevel set,to the last stroke on leather.
Faulter on any of them and you have failed,JMHO:)