Thread: Hello and Ouch from Maine

Originally Posted by Lynn

Just out of curiosity, it would be interesting to see the hone wear from the DMT on the spine.

I was trying to take a photo of that before, but the metal is so curvy and shiny that it was impossible for me to get a clear shot of the wear on the spine. I could get the sun to glint off of it perfectly at times, but not with one hand on the razor and another on the camera.

By way of narrative description in place of a photo:

• On the concave side, the wear on the spine matches the wear on the blade. Only the tip and shoulder areas are flat, and the middle is untouched.
• On the convex side, the wear is pretty even across the spine.

I think the results on the convex side result from me putting pressure on different parts of the spine during different parts of my stroke, or possibly just during different honing attempts. It's easier to balance the spine on two points (concave side) than on one point (convex side), so I'm sure that I spread the wear around through poor technique. Or, perhaps, just being a human instead of a machine.

BTW, I just watched your honing video on the main page. Admittedly, you were using a 1K and 5K stone whereas I was using an 8K. Still, if those few strokes and that light of a touch were all it took to restore a dull razor to sharpness, then the amount of work I put in to honing this brand-new razor was definitely excessive, and indicative of a manufacturing flaw. Thanks for the video.