Thread: A newbies attempt to hone a razor

Like the Ozmodius said, "It is possible" but there are differences in the edge put on a Feather and the edge that you put on the SR...

First, you need the right SR, IME the type that normally can attain that sort of wicked shapness and hold onto it normally come from Little Valley NY, there are exceptions of course (ask Gugi) but in general The NY straight razors take and hold a very sharp edge...

Second, You need the right stones/hones/films to go there,

Third, You need the skill to take the edge to that level but not take it over the top and create a fagile edge

When all those things come together yes you can get into the same type of sharpness that a Feather has.. BTW then you have to be able to strop with perfection to keep it there, because you can't coat it with the same stuff Feather and others use on their blades


Keep in mind that looking at this by the numbers, edge start to cut hair at about .50 Microns the sharpest edges are at about .38 Microns so that only leaves 12/100ths of a Micron to possibliy mess with This is why many of us say that we are chasing that elusive "1% better" when we start chasing the edges..

The freshest Feather blade and the best honed St8 razor are by thier nature 2 completely different animals, They just don't work the same!!! I just finished a Timor 6/8th's [Gieson and Forstoff] Str8 and with the 1st pass with the grain, while stroking with the grain with my have I felt nothing but bare skin, very nice, but is it the same as a fresh Feather blade? No, not even supposed to be so mate.
So if you are going to spend all your honing time equiling the edge of a fresh Feather, you'll be setting yourself up for more work than your nerves can ultimatly handle.

Just my 2, have a great shave today and forget about the struggles of humanity for a while!!

Thanks for the advice guys. The problem that I have though is that even a freshly honed blade from a honemeister will only shave about half my head before i get tug/pull and need to strop it... And even then, as stated, the first pass is no where near as smooth as a feathers shave. Generally on a reasonably well kept blade I still dont get a comfortable shave. Keep in mind I go through at least 2 sides of a feather blade per head shave...

I have a kamisori en-route though and they were originally designed for A) Head shaving (which is what I'm doing) and B) Thick asian hair (which I have) so here's
to hoping that it works out for me. Otherwise I might have to just go with a shavette to get a practical shave without honing once a week :/

ps, this was typed on a tablet, so sorry for the poor punctuation and formatting

800-1k=sets bevels..start there..razor should cut hairs easily

Razor is a razor..doesnt matter what is was "thought" to do if you can get it to shave everything...Jimbo shaves his face..and his head with his straights..im sure back then headshaving wasnt very popular

Try a freshly honed razor from NY...some good and hard steel.

Originally Posted by shooter74743

Try a freshly honed razor from NY...some good and hard steel.

Hey Shooter,

what are some examples of an NY Razor brand? to be honest i've not gone that far down the rabbit hole. I have a Kamisori made from Aogami Super which is a very hard steel on its way. How would that compare to an NY Razor?

The kamisori should be a bit harder than most straights, but it's hand made...so it's hard to say. I would only be able to answer that once I took it to the stones...then I could answer that in just a few seconds. I will PM you my favorite NY razor...can't let that one out of the bag in public.
Scott

Thanks! I'll see how the kamisori goes. Honing it will be a whole other story. I'm already browsing those threads and watching the videos. In the mean time I'll keep an eye out for a some NY steel on the bay.

You want hard steel ? Maybe you can find a cheap Iwasaki ?