Thread: First honing attempt; 12K, blade jumpy on one side.

I lapped the Naniwa 12K and went for a touch-up of my Dovo stainless since it's been tugging a bit.

Tried to make sure the stone was flat and very smooth all over.

As I began making the strokes, the better-shaving side of the blade seemed to do fine. The movement was smooth and it almost felt like the blade was being sucked-down onto the stone; my impression was that this means things were in pretty good shape, and the blade and stone "fit each other" pretty well?

On the other side of the blade, I'd begin a stroke and then after about an inch of travel, it would seem to "catch". I thought maybe there was a bad spot on the stone that only presented in one direction, so I turned the stone around. But still got the same catching. I tried to keep the blade as flat as possible and as little pressure as I could. I ended up doing a lot more strokes than I had intended, trying to "work out" whatever the issue was. Things got better but the "bad" side never did get the same kind of "sucked onto the stone" feel as the other side.

What does this tell me about the blade and/or stone, or my technique? Should I keep going at it with the 12K? Put more strokes onto the bad side, or keep it 1:1? Move down to coarser stones? I was hoping to avoid that this early in the game. I don't see any gross defects and have only been shaving with it maybe 3 times a week for about 4 months, stropping every time and began using chromium oxide/balsa to touch up every half-dozen shaves the last couple months. That really helped a lot in the beginning.

Not sure I understand the "jump". After it jumps it then smooths out for the rest of the stroke. This is the weirdest part to me. It's like: 1 inch of smooth stroke, jump, then 8 inches of smooth stroke.

Shaves a bit better than before, but definitely not as good as when it was new.

Thanks for any insights.

Look really close at the spine see if something looks off but you might have honed it out

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Look really close at the spine see if something looks off but you might have honed it out

If the stone is properly lapped, then it may very well be in the blade as irregularities of the spine or the edge itself.

It sounds like you have a spot on the bevel that is angled differently than the rest of the blade edge. It's really hard for me to explain what I'm saying. Basically, if there's a portion of your blade edge that isn't in the same plane as the rest of the bevel, it will cause it to do something that could be described as you described it. I won't say I think that's definitely what it is. But it's what I would suspect.

Does it catch at the same spot every time? What did you use to lap the stone? I had a similar thing happen to me (on a different stone) where there appeared to be a small bit of a coarser grit that was stuck in the surface. I think mine arose from cross contamination from a lower grit stone. It can be very difficult to feel with your hands.

If this were indeed the issue, I might try "cleaning" the stone with your lapping stone, and rinse it under running water, while rubbing the surface with your hand.

I get that sometimes. I have observed that it seems that a few different things can be the cause. Sometimes it's just because the width of the bevel and/or spine wear changes over the length of the edge. Sometimes it's because of a slight warp or smile. Sometimes it's because a part of the edge isn't quite there. And sometimes it seems to randomly happen.

In general, it seems to me that anything that changes the contact between razor and hone, or the amount of contact, can have this effect. Even very small scale changes.