Thread: How sharp is sharp???

Great ideas/techniques.
Thanks.

I'll try the 1k arm hair popping technique next time.

Dundee

Originally Posted by Dundee

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I have set the bevel on a 1000 grit Japanesse water stone.
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I tried to flatten this side best I could, it still isn't 100% flat.
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Next step was 20 circular passes (each side) on 4000 grit waterstone, and 20 full laps leading with the edge. I don't have a 8000 grit stone
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First use a magic market to verify that
the bevel is well set at 1k and 4k. The razor
can have a lot of oddness in its shape and
variations in hone strokes can adapt. A modified
X hone stroke is worth some research. Magic marker
will make it easy to see if the entire bevel is
being honed well.

With a 4000 grit stone you are going to wish
you had a finer hone.

There is not too much you can do but there are
some make do tricks that might help.

You can save the slurry and swarf from your 4k hone efforts
and 'paint' it lightly on common cardboard. Fold the cardboard
along the corrugations so you have a three inch wide
flat surface. Let the "painted" cardboard dry and then
lightly strop your razor on the pasted cardboard strop. The slurry bits
will embed themselves in the cardboard and act as if they
are finer than 4k.

After a bit of stropping on pasted cardboard wrap some news
print on the cardboard "make do" strop and strop on newsprint.

After newsprint switch to your clean canvas strop (50) and then your clean leather
finish strop (50).

Nice nifftyshaving,
I like the poorboy approach. My whole goal in this endeavor is to bring down the cost and impact of disposable shaving. We will have to see how it goes over time cause I am starting to like this!!

A wise man once said " A blunt razor cuts the deepest"

Originally Posted by Dundee

Nice nifftyshaving,
I like the poorboy approach. My whole goal in this endeavor is to bring down the cost and impact of disposable shaving. We will have to see how it goes over time cause I am starting to like this!!

Do keep you eye open for an 8k hone or perhaps a barber hone.
The poorboy approach can result in poor edges.

Since we all have different whiskers and faces what works
for you will be different than what works for me. For me
a shave needs a good hone one good step beyond 8k to be
enjoyable.

A number of solutions that work for an individual are not reliable
enough for a professional razor sharpener.

Stropping on newsprint is one of those tricks.

Slurry and swarf that we commonly wash down a
drain is interesting stuff. By suspending the grit
in water it can be classified by letting it settle
for a while the heavy coarse bits settle out to
the bottom first. The milky 'suspension' can be
decanted and used to paste make-do strops.

Make-do strops can be made with any number of
materials... from cardboard, to balsa to whatever.
My favorite is a strop made from silk ties.

Dundee sharp is subjective to a lot of factors hone grit and experience are the two main ones as i see it,if you can't afford a higher grit stone i would look into getting some diamond or cro ox paste for the back of your strop or any other flat surface,it will refine and polish a 4k edge quite well and make do until you get more stones,stepping to your 4k sooner than usual will take longer but that time will polish more of the courser stone scratches out but if you really want sharper and smoother you need the higher grit stones,now to explore the different degrees of sharpness finer stones are needed and you need to sharpen test then repeat until you get to the over sharpened edge,the finer the stone the more you can push it to get the experience as once you know the difference in different degrees of sharpness you know what it feels like

IMO, sharp is not subjective. Shave sharp means that a razor takes out all the stuble on its path. The degree of shave sharp, shave-readiness, is subjective since 'ready for a comfortable shave' is open too many interpretations. Sharp is not. If your razor does not take out all the stuble, it's not sharp enough. I don't necessarily mean that it delivers a one pass baby-butt smooth shave, but every hair must be cut.

What I've found is that the hanging hair test is an indicator when the razor can cut hair, after having set a bevel indicated by the TPT/TNT. I hone on for quite a bit after the first good HHT results, at some point I decide that the edge is done. Strop, shave test a small patch, and if it's not good enough back to honing. Repeat until you get a satisfactory result or start to get really pissed off

As said, using TPT/TNT beyond the bevel setting stage will only dull your edge, effectively throwing you back to where you started a bit before the bevel was set. It's like taking 2 steps forward, 3 back.


@Dundee: I'd suggest you do two things:

(1) Go through some of the wiki articles here.
(2) Get higher grit equipment.

At least up to 8000 Norton or comparable synthetic Japanese waterstone, if you decide to go for a stone. Or a coticule, very versatile, relatively cheap, takes a bit of time to master but then again, you decided to learn straight shaving. Honing is a part of that, IMO.

When honing starting at bevel setting to shave-ready, you can't cut any corners. You don't need 27 natural progression and finishing stones to get a razor shave sharp (I have had one combination coticule now for about two months and getting (really) good shave-ready results), but your progression must be complete.

Or in other words: you can't brush your teeth with a stick and you can't eat soup with a fork.

Originally Posted by Pithor

Or in other words: you can't brush your teeth with a stick and you can't eat soup with a fork.

Teeth cleaning twig - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by HarleyFXST

Teeth cleaning twig - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LOL

Aaaw, damn! Should've known... Okay then, new and improved:

'You can't brush your teeth with a fork and you can't eat soup with a stick".

Originally Posted by Dundee

Nice nifftyshaving,
I like the poorboy approach. My whole goal in this endeavor is to bring down the cost and impact of disposable shaving. We will have to see how it goes over time cause I am starting to like this!!

a PHIG (People's Hone of Indeterminate Grit) is cheap for a high grit stone. But you roll the dice with those. I own 2, one of them just can't give a nice edge no matter how hard I try, the other is absolutely amazing.