Thread: Kamisori honing question

I was hoping for pics of the whole blade to see the overall condition.
For me pics of the bevels are not telling the whole story, seeing the hone wear on each side tells more about the condition of the razor IMO.
The razor you have is Iwasaki kamisori by the way, they are honed 1:1 as you can see here done by the maker of the razors.

Stefan,

Originally Posted by mainaman

I was hoping for pics of the whole blade to see the overall condition. For me pics of the bevels are not telling the whole story, seeing the hone wear on each side tells more about the condition of the razor IMO.

sorry, I did not get that. No I currently have not pictures of the blade. There is a bit of honemarks but not much. Just so, that You see they are there. They are not spreading over the whole length as they would on a western razor but a more concentrated lengthly spot towards the tip. But I can take pictures.

Originally Posted by mainaman

The razor you have is Iwasaki kamisori by the way, they are honed 1:1 as you can see here done by the maker of the razors.

Yes, it's an Iwasaki and I had seen the video a few months ago. Because of this video I had the idea that the kamisori might very well have some marks even when new. However I did neither realize a) the connection between this and my razor and b) the 1:1 ratio. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

I still don't trust my luck, but that could be more than good news.

... looking closely at the video, I see he's doing a good x-stroke on the omote followed by a very very careful and short one on the ura, which is almost going as far to the side as forward.
Still async, but not as much as I thought.

I definitely will have to talk to her and ask how she likes to be treated.

Thanks

Frank

I am going to take a second and get very very technical here about the Vid above..

Watch carefully first at the Circles, note that the Circles done on the Bevel side (No-Stamps) are done into the edge to create more cutting power, now watch carefully after the flip, (Stamped side) the Circles now are done lighter and away from the edge..

Now watch very carefully at the finishing strokes, note the difference in technique and pressure he is using between each side..

I only speak "Dojo Japanese" so I have no clue whether he is explaining that or not

The "Trick" to honing Kamisori regardless of the techniques used, always comes down to the shifting of pressure between the two sides, and between the edge and the spine...

You can practice that, or you can hone them western style and shave them that way too, they are after all your razors and you are shaving your face so that choice is always yours...

Originally Posted by gssixgun

... Watch carefully first at the Circles, note that the Circles done on the Bevel side (No-Stamps) are done into the edge to create more cutting power, now watch carefully after the flip, (Stamped side) the Circles now are done lighter and away from the edge.. Now watch very carefully at the finishing strokes, note the difference in technique and pressure he is using between each side..

That's what I found too. In this video of two minutes something he is using so many different techniques. Each motion has a meaning and is done deliberately, learned and practiced over years or even decades.

I think what he is doing is just his own personal variation on standard kamisori Honing. No real mystery.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

I am going to take a second and get very very technical here about the Vid above..

Watch carefully first at the Circles, note that the Circles done on the Bevel side (No-Stamps) are done into the edge to create more cutting power, now watch carefully after the flip, (Stamped side) the Circles now are done lighter and away from the edge..

Now watch very carefully at the finishing strokes, note the difference in technique and pressure he is using between each side..

I only speak "Dojo Japanese" so I have no clue whether he is explaining that or not

The "Trick" to honing Kamisori regardless of the techniques used, always comes down to the shifting of pressure between the two sides, and between the edge and the spine...

You can practice that, or you can hone them western style and shave them that way too, they are after all your razors and you are shaving your face so that choice is always yours...

Important points Glen brings up here. It may seem semantic to some but pressure & duration on the stone do not really translate to a 1:1 ratio.
As always with kataba (single bevel) tools the ura or back always gets less honing.

It's extremely unlikely that the razor is ruined or that the initial honing has made any ill effect.

Since you're technically minded basically the reason to hone with more strokes (and/or more pressure) on the less hollow side is that due to the grind difference there would be more metal to remove because of the (increasingly) wider bevel (only because of the grind asymmetry).
If you don't do this, then you'll slowly be moving the geometry of the razor by eating more steel from the more hollow side.

A single honing (without abuse) should cause virtually no difference in the geometry. Even if you remove a 1/64" steel from the razor's width by honing only on one side (ignoring the burr issue), the change of angle is going to be about 1 degree instead of 0.5 degree that you would have if you hone ideally on both side and perfectly preserving the original geometry.

When the razor is new the difference between the two sides is at it's smallest. So, I don't think you should worry much about it.

Originally Posted by gugi

It's extremely unlikely that the razor is ruined or that the initial honing has made any ill effect.

Since you're technically minded basically the reason to hone with more strokes (and/or more pressure) on the less hollow side is that due to the grind difference there would be more metal to remove because of the (increasingly) wider bevel (only because of the grind asymmetry).
If you don't do this, then you'll slowly be moving the geometry of the razor by eating more steel from the more hollow side.

A single honing (without abuse) should cause virtually no difference in the geometry. Even if you remove a 1/64" steel from the razor's width by honing only on one side (ignoring the burr issue), the change of angle is going to be about 1 degree instead of 0.5 degree that you would have if you hone ideally on both side and perfectly preserving the original geometry.

When the razor is new the difference between the two sides is at it's smallest. So, I don't think you should worry much about it.

Good to read Your comments. So the situation is not perfect, but not hopeless either. I really fell in love with her and it would be really sad.

Despite the imperfections (I'm not perfect either) she is a wonderful razor. We met this morning and after basicly a single pass followed by some water shave for fine tuning, I left her with a wonderful shave. I personally don't like to use the word BBS as it is one of those not clearly defined terms that people are obsessed by, like the HHT, but I now sit in the office and keep touching my face (which know, I should not do).

It occured to me - but that actually is another topic - that there sometimes seems to be a bit of pulling, not the edge pulling beard, but the razor's surface stucking on skin. This seems to happen, when I hold the razor (more) flat and the surface, due to the geometry and the curved skin, also touches the skin. I'm used to hollow razors, but I guess a full wedge would behave similar.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

Important points Glen brings up here. It may seem semantic to some but pressure & duration on the stone do not really translate to a 1:1 ratio.
As always with kataba (single bevel) tools the ura or back always gets less honing.

No, it's not semantic at all. When playing piano, the way how You touch, hold and leave the keys makes a huge difference for the tone, although from a mechanical point of view this does not seem to make a difference at all.

Originally Posted by DDTech

It occured to me - but that actually is another topic - that there sometimes seems to be a bit of pulling, not the edge pulling beard, but the razor's surface stucking on skin. This seems to happen, when I hold the razor (more) flat and the surface, due to the geometry and the curved skin, also touches the skin. I'm used to hollow razors, but I guess a full wedge would behave similar.

Maybe change the consistency of your lather slightly or raise the angle just enough.