Thread: My first "real" attempt at honing- let the criticism fly!

The razor is a Dovo Pearlex. I was going to upload a picture but I'm maxed out. Sorry.

This is where the blade started
This is the 400 grit Naniwa Chosera with a criss-cross cut
This is the 1000 grit Naniwa Chosera
This is the 3000 grit Naniwa Chosera
This is the 5000 grit Naniwa Chosera
This is the 8000 grit Naniwa Snow White
This is the 12000 grit Naniwa Super Stone
This is Chromium Oxide on balsa
This is after 40 laps on a clean Walkin' Horse bridle leather strop
This is after I shaved

So, I received the rest of my stones from Chef Knives To Go: Kitchen Knives, Chef Knives, Shun Knives, Global Knives, Wusthof Knives, Henckels Knives (the cheapest place online I could find what I was looking for- including ebay, fyi) and the 400x USB microscope that I used to take the pictures.

I found the microscope to be VERY helpful to be able to see what I was doing. I found that my "light" pressure was still WAY too much and when you read over and over to use very light pressure, that's what it means. I was able to see that my "light" wasn't nearly light enough because the scratches weren't being honed away, I was just creating new ones. Barely putting any pressure down on the razor while honing proved to give the highly polished results you're looking for. The edge, to the naked eye, looked like a mirror after the 8k stone. You can see that's not the case under the microscope.

It's kind of hard to see in the pictures, but with more inspection on my end, it appeared that the 12k Super Stone did a better job with polishing than the chromium oxide on balsa. Can anyone confirm this?

I also found that, while I had read that these stones cut quickly, I didn't really appreciate what that meant until I could see the results under a microscope. I believe every time I've tried to sharpen a razor I have fully over-honed , simply because I didn't understand just how fast these stones remove metal- also, the amount of metal you're trying to remove is very, very little. Literally, the depth of the scratched from the previous stone is all you're trying to accomplish. When going up a grit level, this is accomplished in just a few strokes with these stones.

I'm quite impressed with how these stones have performed for this purpose. I know I have more stones in this pyramid than I needed but I already had them so I figured I would use them. I was waiting for the 8k and 12k to arrive- the 1k, 3k, and 5k I had previously.

Again with the "light", even when I was stropping before the microscope, I was stropping too hard. It doesn't seem like "no pressure" would do anything to steel, but it certainly does. So, to all of the other beginners out there who think they need to push a little harder, I cannot stress to you enough, in this case, less is absolutely more. If the blade is touching the hone, you're probably pressing hard enough. If you're applying pressure, it's probably too much. This goes for the strop as well.

Well, thanks for reading! I would love to hear whatever anyone has to say about this (except that I could have just used a Norton or Belgian coticule) I'm going to be using the stones for things other than razors which is why I went the route that I did. If anyone has any questions for me, feel free to ask.

Thanks!