Thread: The easy way or the hard way?

I have honed a few dozen razors. I have re-honed a couple of dozen more as my gear and experience mount. I can get an old, problem free, hollow razor keen and neat in half an hour. I can get most wedges pretty keen by lots of bevel work and trial and error, I admit to setting double bevels to achive a good edge sometimes.
But, I do rely on abrasives to get my razors to mow fine arm hair with aplomb.

My question is, "What percentage of razors do you find are problem free regards to honing them up"?
ta LSBFW

So far, everything not Geneva pyramid brand. After messing with those razors for hours on end...I can safely conclude nothing is as hard as those suckers.

I think in general given equal blade condition and grind most blades are similar as far as what they take to hone them up.

Of course there are exceptions like some customs using really hard steel and things like the TI damascus and I'm told the Frank Warner's are a real bear to hone. Maybe stainless in general takes a little more to hone and of course wedges can take much longer.

I have about 100 razors and the differences are just not that great. Where there were real differences it was because one razor was in worse shape than another.

I think sometimes guys will complain about this or that taking forever but when you really examine it the individual razor is one of those exceptions.

Yea I know someone's gonna come along and say it took forever to touch up their King Cutter but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

In general I have found most Solingen full hollows to be a piece of cake. Sheffield wedges to be tougher. I have had good luck with American brands like Case, Cattaragus and Robeson. Some Theirs Issards were tough. The most work for me were a custom ATS 34, a TI Damascus and the Robert WIlliams smiling Damascus custom. I discovered the DMTs could make life easier with those folowed by Shaptons and the Lynn Abrams felt strop with the 0.5 diamond spray.

I'd say that once a bevel is set, it's all pretty easy from there. It seems to me the question of how long it takes to set the bevel depends on the grind and the condition the edge is in more than the make of the blade.

Funny that Leighton mentioned the Geneva Pyramid, because one of those gave JoeD a real tough time...

I think that there's a bit of a culture around SRP that scares people away from coarser grits.

You can do a lot of damage quickly, but at the same time, you can get to a good bevel quickly as well.

I'll try to establish a bevel at 4000. If that doesn't work, drop down to 1000. If that doesn't work, 600grit sandpaper...

5-10 minutes at 400 grit is probably like 2-5 hours at 4000 grit.

All that being said I don't have any priceless family heirlooms . Just a bunch of razors that I won't feel bad if I have to walk away from (I've only had to admit defeat once so far)

Mark

Originally Posted by 0o.Mark.o0

I think that there's a bit of a culture around SRP that scares people away from coarser grits.

You can do a lot of damage quickly, but at the same time, you can get to a good bevel quickly as well.

I'll try to establish a bevel at 4000. If that doesn't work, drop down to 1000. If that doesn't work, 600grit sandpaper...

5-10 minutes at 400 grit is probably like 2-5 hours at 4000 grit.

All that being said I don't have any priceless family heirlooms . Just a bunch of razors that I won't feel bad if I have to walk away from (I've only had to admit defeat once so far)

Mark

I never noticed that culture. Bevel setting = 1k. Any coarser and thats more restoration than honing IMHO. But thats just semantics.

i tend to like my coarse dmt and shapton 500 a lot properly used everything after that is easy
time on the coarser stones saves time everywhere else

and is a good thing IMO

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

I'd say that once a bevel is set, it's all pretty easy from there. It seems to me the question of how long it takes to set the bevel depends on the grind and the condition the edge is in more than the make of the blade.

Funny that Leighton mentioned the Geneva Pyramid, because one of those gave JoeD a real tough time...

Yep, that blade looked brand new and now I know why. Using a 1k stone it took forever to set the bevel. If I had a coarser hone I would have used it. Shaves great now.