Thread: "De"-honing a razor to compare honing methods?

If I have a shave-ready razor that was honed in a certain manner but then would like to try honing it on a different combination of hones, or try more/fewer laps, pyramid versus sets, etc. do I need to DE-hone the razor somehow first? I am talking about a razor that was used for shaving just once or twice so that it hasn't had the wear of six months of shaving and ready for a fresh honing. Should I somehow simulate that six months use on the razor? How would I do that?

What if I just want to try a different finisher, say a Thury or a JNAT instead of a barbers hone, should I do something to blunt the edge a little bit before polishing on the new finisher? I have a Koenig barber's hone, a JNAT, and have a Thury coming in the mail. I would love to compare all three using the same razor. How could I undo the finish on one and then refinish on another?

Dullness is a quality all too easily achieved. Razors around the world are reduced to tears when one of their brethren is intentionally dulled.

You can rehone the razor right over the prior honing without having to do any damage to it first.

"Breadknifing" is a four letter word.

GD, this is a good question. As you might suspect, some of the answers must use some assumptions. Are you equally familiar w/ each of the stones you wish to compare? If the Thuri is still in the mail, it seems the answer is: 'no'. With the possible exception of the barber's hone, each natural requires more than a little time to become familiar with what works for that stone with your individual honing/stroke methods. So prior to getting that familiarity with each stone - a comparison of edges is not a true comparison. At 363 blades honed, I'm fairly familiar with only one of the stones in the arsenal. So I still work alot on the stones I'm less familiar with, and often have to fall back to the stone I am familiar with. Another few hundred blades and I expect I'll be alot better on the more recent stones.

That doesn't mean you can't get decent edges on each stone, and the fact that you use a single blade for comparison means you get to learn how each stone needs to be used for that specific razor.

By all means - compare, have fun, learn. Learn some more. Of all the 'AD's I've had, my present one seems to hold the most potential: Skills Aquisition Disorder. Its a longer path than others, and paypal is no help at all. But once the skills are there, every stone you touch will be a better stone.

To address the 'dulling' question. The comparison of finishes doesn't require dulling unless your stone is picky about which stone is used just prior to finishing. Jnats can be picky this way. Mine doesn't like a c12k edge before its used. It does like most others. As the honorable Oz once told me - when I asked the same question - about 20 strokes and the previous finish is likely replaced.

I hung my head when I read that you would consider de-honing a razor just so you can un-dull it a different way

This is just my opinion but I don't think you'd need to dull a razor and totally rest the bevel to test finishing hones. I would think that going backwards to 8K and even 4K to introduce some scratches back onto that bevel then testing the finisher to see how well it polishes after that progression would have the desired effect.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

I hung my head when I read that you would consider de-honing a razor just so you can un-dull it a different way

Sometimes the desire to hone is primal.

A few years ago there was a method in vogue of dulling the edge on a bottle by lightly stroking the cutting edge on the glass. The theory being that you wouldn't be fooled into thinking that your current honing got the razor sharp when it was already 'there.' I tried that a couple of times and decided it wasn't something I wanted to continue doing.

If I have a shave ready razor, honed on a particular finisher, and I want to see if honing it on another type of finisher will improve or degrade the edge I just go to that other finishing stone. If it is a matter of using a different honing method entirely I might have to start from square 1 and reset the bevel ..... might not have to ..... I might just go 4k-8k and on up. A lot of room for variables in this honing biz.

I will suggest that you need not do anything to start a "new" edge.

If you are on the level that you can assess the differences between honing methods, you CERTAINLY are at the level to see that your coarsest step in the "new" progression has made its impact on the edge under a lens

Any extraneous edge removal would be a waste of steel IMO, but perhaps some would insist on it for demonstration purposes?

Jeez

Lick yer thumbnail, do the TNT about 3 times this will just take the "Edge" off your edge with out wrecking anything, then re-fresh with your new finisher...

Be warned it will kill the edge enough that the shave will suffer so MAKE SURE this is something you want to do first

DON'T DO IT! You shouldn't use a finisher until you've got a shave-ready edge from an 8k hone anyway.

I've been testing some blade/hone combinations in my own collections recently, and just work over the old honing with the stone I want to try next. If I do anything to clear a previous hone's influence, it's a few laps on the Naniwa 12k, which I have adopted as my "plain vanilla reference hone." Then, if anything, the next finisher might be a step back.

Don't waste steel and time dulling a perfectly good razor.