Thread: So I bought a razor ... or 10

Originally Posted by RezDog

First off let me say I am no JNat expert. I thought level 5 was the hard hone.
Tape is your friend.
You can save a lot of stell by learning using tape.
Once you can hone without grinding that tape away, you will have reached a point in learning where tape is no longer required.

That is excellent advice, thank you.

Thanks for the advice!
I shall grind away that heel on the Chabaz and start using tape.
Le Dandy off Jnat was rather harsh this morning, but not more than off the 12k. Is there a chance that I didn't set the bevel correctly? I used a King 1k for the bevel as my Naniwa 1k wasn't delivered yet at that point.

King 1k is a fine stone and very underrated. The are generally smaller but work just fine for setting a bevel.

What do you have between the 1 and 8k? The transition stone, where you transition from grinding to polishing, removing all the deep 1k stria is the second most important stone. If you do not remove the deep 1k stria at the edge, you cannot get a straight smooth shaving edge on the finer stones, unless you do a lot of laps, a lot of laps.

Are raising slurry for the Jnat with a diamond plate?

Make sure to deburr your diamond plate, lap all your stone and hone a knife or two on it to knock off any high diamonds and break in the plate.

If you have an issue with an edge, the first thing you should do is, look at it, straight down on the edge, with magnification. Shiny reflections are where the bevels are not meeting.

Some Jnats will not finish on plain water.

After the King 1k I used the other side of that stone, the 6k (I have the combination King). I know the gap from 1k to 6k is quite large. A Naniwa 4k Hayabusa is on it's way. It should arrive next week or so.

Yesterday it was my first use of the diamond plate. I've deburred it, but did not break it in. I shall do that.

Any decent recommendations for magnification? I've ordered a cheap Chinese 30X loupe.

I like the Carson Micro Bright 50-120 X, they sell for $10-15. Run on AA batteries.

And the 60x lighted loupe, that sells for $2-5, it is cheaper to buy these new, than to replace the batteries, so buy a couple.

There are many threads on magnification, these two are the most popular and cost effective. You can buy more powerful and more expensive magnification, but you don’t need it. You just want to have a quick look to see if the bevels are meeting and deep stria is removed.

The King 6k is fine, a little slow, because of the jump and I think it is finer than 6k but works fine. Just make sure you are removing all the deep 1k stria.

The 12k is more aggressive than the Fuji but a 6 to 8k jump is small.

The 4k Hayabusa is a fine 4k. You are buying some nice stones. Really all the lower grit stones don’t matter all that much. They are all getting you to the finish stone. What matters is a fully set bevel, then remove the previous grits stria with each stone and keep making the edge straighter with no chips.

You will just have to experiment with slurry on the Jnat. You might want to look at Alex Gilmore’s Jnat honing videos at ,The Japan Stone. You will probably have to put in more laps and time than Alex does, (he has been doing this a while) but it is a good example of how little you really need.

You don’t need a full progression of stamped Nagura and selection of Tomo Nagura, but finding a good Tomo for your stone or a Koma, can get you a smoking edge. It is all experimentation. Nagura alone is a rabbit hole.

Alex has tons of videos with Jnats going from 1k to Jnat finish with Diamond slurry. You can do a lot more with slurry, but sometimes you don’t have to.

As with most things honing you can make it as complicated as you want to. Alex is a stone dealer, he knows his Jnats. Check out his AXE2method.

Bottom line is, does it shave well, for you.

I've read a lot of forum threads on magnification. No real conclusion in the end, so I chose the cheap route. We'll see how it works for me and reassess.
Also, I've seen lots of youtube clips about honing, including Alex Gilmore's. My conclusion was: get my hands on some actual stones and start honing. I've ordered some cheap razors too, so I can learn without ruining my vintage NOS Bismarck.

Originally Posted by Eurofighter

Any decent recommendations for magnification? I've ordered a cheap Chinese 30X loupe.

You get what you for, especially when purchasing a lovely Chinese 30x loupe. Check out this thread and consider saving up for a BelOMO 10x achromatic triplet -- your eyes will thank you. Amazon has them priced around $33 right now.

But, if you're fairly young and can tolerate the considerable eye strain, then maybe the Chinese LED loupe will get the job done.

Hi and welcome aboard. Had one of the 30x and ended up buying one of the 60x shown above. Big step up and surprising how much you miss with less.

Originally Posted by Euclid440

Perfect the 8 or 12k. Once you can get great edges from either, then a Natural should improve that.

I don't know how that could be made as a blanket statement without knowing the quality of the 'Natural'. There are plenty of natural stones that are much worse than an 8k synthetic