Thread: BigSpedur's challenge

Thanks for posting these updates. It's encouraging that even a very experienced honer can still spend frustrating hours on a blade... I'm enjoying your editorial comments, too.

Josh

8 hours and counting.

The day before Yesterday I only got in 1 hour of honing because my daughter had startled awake at 20:30 and panicked. It was 22:00 before she was ready to sleep.

Anyway, I spent an hour on the blue, using a little pressure and going slow. I concentrated on maintaining edge contact with the stone through slight rolling.
The burring I saw yesterday is a lot less, and the deep scratches are now either gone or shallow scratches.

A norton 4K would probably have done it quicker, but apart from coarse stones I only have blue and yellow belgian.

I had to lap the blue 2 times in between because the bevel was not even in the beginning.

Yesterday I took some pictures with an imaging microscope at work.

Heel


Middle


Toe


If you think this looks bad, believe me: the day before it was a lot worse.

9.5 hours and counting.

Yesterday I set out to get rid of the burring.
Since this is a honing experiment anyway, I decided to try something.
When I hone craft tools, I finish on a piece of yellow coticule. Each time I do that, I notice that the slurry becomes grey if the edge was not totally smooth.

Since this razor was also burred, I decided to leave the blue for now and go to the yellow. Most people only use it as a finishing stone, but I am glad I tried.

I used medium pressure, and boy what a sight. The places that had burrs left grey smears on the stone. After 10 minutes the slurry was completely black, so I rinsed it off and started with a clean stone.

After an hour, the bevel was gleaming from heel to toe, with only a couple of tiny burrs left. They are almost too small to see them, but under strong light I can see the reflections.

The feel on the stone is different now. The razor slides without scraping on the stone, and I can feel no burrs when cleaning it with cloth. It is back to popping arm hairs.

By now my left arm is starting to look weird. There are 8 bald spots on my forearm. I'll have to try something else. I have tried leg hair, but that is much coarser and not cut so easily. Maybe it'll work if the razor is a bit sharper.

What I learned yesterday: the yellow is not only an excellent finishing stone, but also very good at removing debris and burrs despite the very fine garnet grits. I suspect this is because the amount of garnets in the slurry is ten times higher than with the blue.

I hope to remove the last of the fuzz today or tomorrow. Today I am working at my company, so no microscope. That'll have to work until tuesday when I an with my client again.

those are some great pictures, its much easier to see those than what the $10 radioshack microscope view gives you

now if we all had access to a nice imaging microscope ...

But where to buy a good microscope which is not a toy, but also doesn't cost a fortune. There is one place here or another here, but they are both serious money

I do really want to get something.

John

Check out Edmunds scientifics on the web they have a variety of magnifiers and scopes at various prices.

Well now you know why I sent that razor to Bruno. Don't all forget that when I got the razor off Eboy it was a rusty corroded mess I probably initially spent about 5 hours just cleaning it up and polishing the scales to where it is. Then I spent about 4 hours honing until I realized it was warped and nothing would work. Then I experimented with a diamond hone set thinking a narrow hone might work but I couldn't maintain the proper angle and the diamond started to chew up the edge. So if Bruno gets that thing shaving he deserves the Hone-man of the year award.

What you're seeing on the edge may be microchipping caused by either rotten steel or excessively hard brittle steel. I've got a Joseph Elliot frameback (from Ivo) and a Wacker with this problem (the Elliot had rotten steel, the Wacker is just too hard and brittle). Both of them responded well to a Tam O'Shanter hone, which is a very slow waterstone that puts a very fine and gentle polish on a blade without much risk of microchipping.

(Edit: Is the razor you're working on also a Joseph Elliot frameback? I wonder if they had problems during that time period?)

It's a Joseph Rogers & sons frameback, cutlers to their majesties, 6 Norfolk road, Sheffield.

In this case I am fairly confident the chipping happend when I ground the frameback against a very rough stone to smooth it. It had very uneven hone wear. The edge touched the stone as well.
In those pictures, the damage is already partly undone. at first I could see the chipping with a naked eye.

I discovered that I ground the spine the wrong way. It is not dramatic, but honing would be easier if I had put some more thought into it. Next time I need to do that I will use a small belt sander instead of a stone.

I just skimmed through this post. Looks like you guys are going through a LOT of effort. Have you tried simply using narrower hones? I've honed a couple of this style this past week, one in horrible condition. I taped the spine and started on the 2" wide 1000 grit working the smile till I got the bevel I wanted then went to the higher grit stones and they honed right up. the smaller width on the hone seems to work better for me when things are really screwed up. 3 inch wide hones seem to me to be harder to work out unevenness on blades. In a complete shave it shaved like a champ. Maybe this one wasn't as bad as yours. I don't know.

Glen F

Originally Posted by FUD

I just skimmed through this post. Looks like you guys are going through a LOT of effort. Have you tried simply using narrower hones? I've honed a couple of this style this past week, one in horrible condition. I taped the spine and started on the 2" wide 1000 grit working the smile till I got the bevel I wanted then went to the higher grit stones and they honed right up. the smaller width on the hone seems to work better for me when things are really screwed up. 3 inch wide hones seem to me to be harder to work out unevenness on blades. In a complete shave it shaved like a champ. Maybe this one wasn't as bad as yours. I don't know.

Glen F

I used a 2" rough stone and now a 1,5" blue and yellow.
And yes, this razor was one messed up SOB.

You are right though, if a razor has a slight warp, a narrow stone maintains better contact than a wide stone.