Thread: Question from a Newbie - How to sharp my razor

Originally Posted by outback

Welcome to the forum.!
Sorry, nothing more I can add, to what's already been said.

The only thing I can say is, stick with it, be patient, and get a styptic pencil. Your gonna need it, in the beginning.

Pics and videos will be a big help, for us to help you during this pandemic.

HI Mike,
styptic pencil is a good suggestion that I hadn´t considered so far. Well, I guess that my razors are currently so far away from being even potentially dangerous that styptic pencils are not urgent but I will definitely need it when I start shaving.
Have a great rest of the day!
nick

Originally Posted by NickTheSlim

HI Mike,
styptic pencil is a good suggestion that I hadn´t considered so far. Well, I guess that my razors are currently so far away from being even potentially dangerous that styptic pencils are not urgent but I will definitely need it when I start shaving.
Have a great rest of the day!
nick

Don’t be so sure. You can get a pretty nasty cut from what you think is a dull razor.

Originally Posted by NickTheSlim

HI randydance062449, thank you for the link!
here are some pics of my razors and the stone. I´m sure you guys will be able to spot the damage I did !!
Attachment 330057Attachment 330058Attachment 330059Attachment 330060Attachment 330061Attachment 330062

Um, If you look in Buy Sell Trade here in the forum you will find some really nicely honed and very nicely priced vintage razors to get you started.

You can be sure that anyone selling razors here is 100% trustworthy and you'll probably pay less than you did for the one in the pic.

Hello Nick and welcome. You have had a lot of good advice already. You have already seen that it is harder than it first appears but you can get it figured out with some patience and more time. If you look in the members list you can probably find someone close to help. That will be the best way if possible. If not there is a wealth of information here and people to help you. Stick with it and don't get discouraged. If I can do it anyone can.

.
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Thanks for the pics ....
.
The razor you have is what we refer to as an RSO (razor shaped object) suitable for use as a letter opener.
The grinding of the razor is poor and so is the heat treatment of the steel.
The poor grinding makes it difficult to hone and the poor heat treatment guarantees a soft edge that will not stay sharp.

The hone is suitable for the intermediate steps of restoring a razors edge. It is not good for either establishing a bevel (1,000 grit) or as a finishing stone (10,000 or 12,000 grit).

You can’t beat that edge into shaving sharp. Set your self up for failure by coming right out and saying you must do it yourself cause you know how. Learn to shave first! Learn to strop! All with a shave ready razor. By the way no one is self sufficient, can’t happen in today’s society, if you want help take the advice, also put your location so we can see if we can offer help if smart enough to use it, if your in witness protection it’s really not worth worrying about, I always found the guys hiding. Shave strop , maintain , hone

Obie's blades would be good for you

https://sharprazorpalace.com/razors-...ml#post1931624

Yep. Thats is not a real razor. Looks like a razor. Thats why we call them RSO. Many newbies find this out the hard way so dont feel alone.

You can buy about any razor from this site and be safe. Not knowing is not an issue here. And one ladt thing.. dont buy a Gold Dollar razor either. Stick to vintage until you learn more.

So where are you at?

Originally Posted by NickTheSlim

Good morning everyone from Munich!
My name is Nick, I´ve just registered on this forum and I am completely a newbie regarding straight razors.
I would need your help for some very basic questions and I hope to find someone so patient to help me on this Also, I hope that I am posting in the right place as I couldn´t find any other sub-group for "sharpening".

So here´s my biggest problem right now: sharpening my razors.
I bought a couple of entry level razors to practice (single edge hollow cut). As I am just starting, I thought to buy something basic to develop my skills first and then move into more serious tools. I also bought a Bacher Premium Grinding Stone Double-sided 3000/8000 and a 50" leather strop.
I then looked on hundreds of videos on Youtube on how to properly prepare the grinding stone and sharp the razors. Suggested techniques are very different and despite each one claims to be "THE best one", many of them are pointing at quite opposite ways of sharpening.
For me made no difference as I tried them all with very poor results: my razors are even less sharp then when I started! I tried to experiment many changes in the process (inclination of the blade on the grinding stone, speed of motion, direction of motion, number of times I passed the blade on the stone, etc.) Eventually, it never worked out.
Currently the razors are completely unusable.
I understand that sharpening is more an art than just following a checklist; however I guess that I am probably doing something fundamentally wrong in the process, otherwise at least one technique should have worked!
I can post videos/pics if it can help.
Any advice or idea on what I could try to have a sharp blade? what could be the most important factor to pay attention to? any consensus on what is the most effective technique to have a razor perfectly sharpened?

Last question (maybe a silly one): is it even possible (and reasonable) the expect a final result where the straight razor is sharper than safety razors??

Please let me know if you need any further details and thank you for helping out!
nick.

p.s. I cannot shave since the beginning of the lockdown..... HELP!!!!

We all make mistakes while learning to hone a razor. And we keep making them and learning from them as long as we live. You made a couple of fairly common ones. Some would say that your first mistake is raising the spine of the razor off the hone. Let us be perfectly clear on this. With any hollowground razor, the razor must be honed with both the spine and the edge in contact with the stone or film. The spine sets the honing angle and keeps it very accurately at precisely the same angle. But that was NOT your first mistake. Your first mistake is trying to teach yourself to hone your own razors before you first learn to shave with them. Yes, I know it seems illogical, but you really need to get some experience shaving with straight razors before you attempt to hone them. That means you need to begin with a shave-ready razor. Brand new razors straight from the factory, with very few exceptions, are NOT shave ready. They are NOT sharp enough for a good shave. And so there is a catch 22. You need a sharp razor to begin with in order to learn to shave. You need to learn to shave and get considerable experience shaving with known shave ready razors before you learn to make them sharp. But new razors are generally NOT sharp even when the maker says that they are.

Now it is true that some guys HAVE started by learning to hone a dull razor and then learned to shave with it. It has been done and it is possible, but it is very difficult and frustrating. You will not know if the fault is your shaving technique, or your honing technique, or just a bad razor. You will not know which to work on. It will take a very long time to make any progress if you ever do. So it is important to find someone within the straight razor community who will sell you an actual shave ready razor, or who will hone your razor for you. Many claim that ability but not so many possess it. It is not the same as sharpening a knife! You need to find someone who is a respected member of this forum or else another online forum, or someone who is recommended by several respected members of a forum. You want true shave ready, not internet shave ready. Being in Germany you are in luck. You are close to a well known center of fine razor production, the city of Solingen. However, Dovo and other popular manufacturers claim that their razors are shave ready and they are not. I believe I have heard that Ralf Aust razors leave the factory in shave ready condition, but that's about it. And BTW, some disagree with me I am sure but I find that entry level Dovo razors are terrible razors to hone straight from the factory, and a beginner will probably fail. Entry level Dovo razors are made from very good steel like all proper Solingen stamped razors, but they can be very warped and twisted and not sit on the hone properly at all, and so you definitely want an experienced honemeister to hone your entry level Dovo. Higher grade Dovos are usually pretty good and the Dovo Bismarck is one of my favorites. So, even though it seems logical to learn to make it sharp and THEN learn to shave, you actually need to learn to shave and THEN learn to make it sharp, and so you need to somehow begin with a sharp razor. Experience shaving with a verified shave ready razor will teach you how to recognize true shave sharpness and spot things that are wrong with the edge and need correction.

Your second mistake is not so terrible but you attempted to hone your razor without proper equipment and materials. I am not familiar with that brand of stone, but it doesn't sound like a proper razor stone to me. You are much better sticking with popular brands such as Shapton or Naniwa. And if your razor was sharp to begin with, then you seriously dulled it by using that 3k stone and by raising the spine of the razor off the hone and trying to freestyle the angle. A proper grit for finishing or for refreshing a razor's edge is generally felt to be 12k or so grit. Or 1 micron lapping film. Also when you buy a stone, most of the time while it may appear flat, it is NOT flat enough when new, and you must lap the stone before first use, and periodically thereafter.

Your third mistake was not studying and doing your homework, but instead simply jumping right in with both feet and taking the bull by the horns. There are a million ways that one might try to hone a razor. There are a hundred ways that will work, after a fashion. There are a FEW ways that a beginner can pick up quickly and inexpensively, and get good results. You are far better off finding ONE method that is PROVEN to give good results quickly and cheaply, and following that method exactly. Do not change anything. Do not substitute. Do not leave anything out. Do not freestyle. If you start randomly breaking the rules of the method, rules that are proven to work, then you will get random results. Study, and pick ONE method that is PROVEN, and stick with it. Personally I believe that for a newbie, my own Method is the cheapest and the fastest to give not professional, but BETTER than professional results. And yet if you say you are following it but one detail seems unimportant or impractical and so you do something else instead that you believe is just as good or better, then you will probably fail, and you will be lost and confused for a very long time before you begin to get even average results. I would rather see you follow ANYBODY's method perfectly, than to follow mine imperfectly. Do it exactly in a manner that is proven to work, and don't assume that you, a beginner, are smarter than an old master, if you want good results. The secret here is you should not try to learn to be a honemeister. You should instead simply follow directions. Do not try to learn. That takes months or years. DO. That takes hours, or at most, days. DO is fast and simple. LEARN is slow and difficult. Which would you prefer, as a beginner? Become a master later, after you have built a history of success.

There are many points in common with all methods of making a razor sharp. One is that the razor is intelligently designed, and has evolved over centuries into a highly refined shaving tool that is meant to be maintained by the user and to last for generations. A hollowground razor, especially so. The spine, as I said before, is your bevel guide. It sets the angle between the razor and the stone or film. The thickness of the spine and the width of the blade are set at a ratio determined by the maker to result in the perfect bevel angle. And so the edge must never touch the stone unless the spine is already touching the stone. The spine touches the stone first. The spine leaves the stone last. ALWAYS. And when honing it is important to balance the pressure between spine and edge naturally, and not force the spine or the edge into the stone and create uneven wear. Some here will tell you that you must always wrap a layer of electrical or other tape over the spine of the razor to protect it. I absolutely do not believe in this practice at all, as it defeats an important design characteristic of the hollowground razor. And now we are already getting into points that many very skilled and respected honemeisters will argue about and likely if drinking will actually fight over LOL! But the various methods have more in common than in difference. You must have an understanding of the razor's geometry and design. and of the behaviour of steel on a microscopic level, and the use and application of various abrasives. Either that or simply pick a method and follow it without any argument or disagreement. Or take the intelligent route and SEND YOUR RAZOR TO A HONEMEISTER WHO IS RESPECTED IN THE COMMUNITY, for honing. This will not be cheap, since you destroyed the bevel by raising the spine off the stone. But it is seriously the way to go. Do not trust someone who is not trusted by the online straight razor community. Anybody can hang a shingle saying that they "sharpen" razors. Few can actually do it. In the forums, a man's work is always open to peer review and he will be quickly shouted down if he is found to be a fake, a poser, a charlatan.

I won't write a book here about how to begin honing your razors. If you are interested, you can read the articles on my growleymonster.com site. But the smart thing to do is find a respected honemeister to fix your razors for you, for now. You should have at least two razors. Three, even better. Shave with one or mostly with one, and when it is dull, send it out, and shave with the others while you wait for it to come back to you. Eventually you will be ready to try hone a razor yourself. When one becomes dull, after you have chosen a method and purchased the required tools and materials, follow your directions and do not deviate, and sooner or later you will succeed. If you skip around from one method to another, it will take a VERY long time to get anywhere. If you rely on your own untested and untrained judgement, you will take an even longer time and get poor results.

I will throw you a freebie. The first thing to learn about straight razors is how to determine if it is sharp or not. You test a knife for sharpness by trying to slice paper with it, or shave the hair from your arm with it. This is NOT a test for a razor! One test that in one form or another is very old, is the HHT, or Hanging Hair Test. See http://www.coticule.be/hanging-hair-test.html for a detailed explanation. My way is the TTT, or TreeTopping Test. You pass the razor through the air ABOVE your forearm, about 1/4" (roughly 6mm I suppose) ABOVE the skin of your forearm, never touching your arm, and see how easily it clips the tips of your arm hairs off, and how much it pulls the hair when it does so. Pick one method of measuring sharpness, and use it. Test razors when you receive them. Test them before you shave and after you shave. Test them before and after you hone them or strop them. Your results will not be exactly the same as someone else's results, but they will be relevant to you, relative to your previous or expected results. However if you do not get at least minimally good results, you definitely should not be surprised if the razor will not shave. If you tested and got TTT-3 before, and only get TTT-2 after just one or two shaves, you know something is wrong. If you get HHT-4 after honing a razor, you know you are doing very very good. Personal variation will usually only be one number difference, at most.

Good Luck, and Happy Shaves!

This has got to be the most long-winded forum post ever.