Thread: during the honing.. (check the blade)

hello friend i have a pearlex dovo 5/8 carbon steel .........during the honing (belgian cocticule) how i can check if the razor if properly honed??

thanks

The only true test of honing is to shave with it. This is a bit awkward and time-consuming, so there are a number of proxy tests that people use.

Lightly run your moistened thumb across the blade at right angles to it, a dull blade will slide smoothly across, while a sharp blade will catch and grab.

Hold the blade a millimeter or so above your skin, and see if it pops the hair off mid-stalk. If so, then it's getting close. If it can do this on the softer hairs on the underside of your arm then it's probably time to take it to the finishing hone or the pasted strops (at about 1 micron, then work down to .5 and .25 if you want).

I do that moist Thumbpad Test regularly throughout the honing process to get a sense of how the edge is progressing.

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It's also a good way to check for the smoothness of the edge. That's how I realized that the crappy specimen of the coticule I have can't compare to the Norton.