Thread: Sounds like over honing

Through all the threads about the terrors of over-honing, I've yet to encounter any, so I stopped thinking about it. I'm now thinking I'm running into some w/ a coticule finish, where the edge starts out fine, but often doesn't last through the shave. This is a first for me.

To fix, I remember some back-strokes (spine-leading) are the corrective. How many? I don't know. Does this take away the hard-won keenness? How to approach its recovery w/out over honing again. 'Quite puzzled atm.

Are you sure you've actually wire edged a blade? to test lightly run a pin toward the edge, should feel a wire edge. The fact that a shave starts out good doesn't really say "wire edge to me" because they would be unpleasant from the start.

I believe the current thinking is that it's actually very hard to "Overhone" a blade, I've never managed it and on my early attempts to hone i certainly went at it for many many strokes.

To speculate, is it not more likely that the either the bevel was not fully set (i use a combo of TNT, MMT and a loupe to establish a bevel is set), or that not enough work has been done on each grit level going up and the scratches from the bevel set have not been properly polished out?

If you think it is overhoned take the razor one grit level down compared to the grit of your final polisher, give the edge 10 roundtrips, then go back to you final polisher and give her 20 roundtrips. If that gets the bevel to shave-readiness it was overhoned. If not it probably was underhoned.

Overhoning - Straight Razor Place Wiki

Hi Gents & thank you.

As I mentioned in the post - I share the thought that overhoning is way overblown, and had never experienced it. With 299 blades honed now, I'm pretty confident in the bevel, and 10 strokes on a slow coti (Dressante) isn't going to bring back HHT 3-4. To get this, I've used mineral oil, and a paste of bees wax (50/50) with wood-based turpentine - a technique pioneered by Emmanuel back on coticule.be.

I'm getting much more keen edges from the cotis now, but am chasing a level of keenness equal to a Nani 12k or N-asagi. I did the bees wax finish after getting solid HHT3s and gained another 1/2 pt of keeness. The test shave was the best this razor has given, but I didn't do a whole shave with it yet. 'Will try the whole shave tomorrow.

On a coticule ???

Well if you did then that is the easiest to fix, raise a slurry and hone...I doubt it is overhoned though, at least in the common sense of the word, but perhaps in the technical sense, overhoning is simply taking an edge beyond it's capability to hold that edge .. so perhaps the steel was not up to holding that keen of a shaving edge in the first place????

I would take a close look at the steel too perhaps go to the Naniwa 12k and see if it can hold that edge

I have the same experience with a crown and sword I have, starts out fine, one of the sharper edges from the coticule. It seems to lose its way towards the end of the shave.

The only way I got a great shave from it was to spend a little more time on the bevel and light strokes after that, little more than the weight of the razor on the hone. Let the slurry do the work through the dilutions, it seemed to work for that razor. They seem quite hard steel and if you happen to let it dry AT ALL during the bevel setting stages I get a rough edge with it. Seems to mirror your experience pinklather.

I would dull it and start again to be honest.

regards Alex

I took the blade in question back to bevel a few days ago. 'Shaved w/ the edge from asagi to the thuri. 'Good, but not great. Working back up from bevel to fast, low-grit thuri, then hard coticule w/ light slurry, got some nice edge response. Kept going w/ the coti, finishing on the wax/turp surface and got great keenness - but not longevity. I'll know from the shave test tomorrow if the latest edge holds. Thanks again, Gents.

Shave test on the razor had the edge holding thoughout the shave. This blade was a Morley. The other one where the edge didn't hold was the beloved Williams. I don't know if the difference in steel hardness comes into play. For whatever reason the Morely seems to be fine so far.

Again, I appreciate your kind help.