Thread: micro-chipping

My latest get it really sharp measure was stropping with .25 micron diamond paste on the paddle strop followed by 30-50 strokes on the leather strop.

2 out of 3 of my razors now have fine microchipping on the edges. They are certainly the sharpest that they have ever been but I've lost that nice smooth edge.

What I'm wondering at this point is the cause. Did I tear out the edge with the .25 or did it simply bring out an underlying problem with my edge?
Or is it possible that a wapi can't hold an edge this fine and I should back down to the .5 micron paper?

I am going to drop back down to my 8k hone this evening and clean up the edge and start again and see if I can figure out what happened by observation.

I would certainly appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks,
Bob

My thoughts are that each paste grit isn't a solution/problem in itself. At this point I wouldn't say .25 is BAD. I'd say that with your previous honing as an initial start the number of laps on the .25 was inappropriate or that you used too much pressure when using it.

There is a specific number of strokes for each grit on each type of steel and the use of any honing medium is additive on to each progressive step.

If you were, for example, to go back and somehow magically produce a less sharp edge on the original 4K action, you could now have done more .25 passes on a logarithmic scale (in simple terms you could have done many more .25 passes at the expense of one 4 K pass).

I hope this makes sense to you.

Honing isn't really complex, but sometimes explaining it can be.

Or another way of saying it is that by doing too many passes on the .25 you honed your razor so thin that it created micro chips by essentially crumbling the edge of the razor. When I first used a .25 strop I had the same problem with a razor. The .25 can put a really kean edge on a razor but you have to be careful because when you overhone with it you don't get the usual overhone response as you would with say a standard hone even at12K. With the .25 the edge just collapses on you.

OK, I'll try and tie this in with the discussion I'm trying to have about what sounds like a very similar situation. i.e.- after putting a fine (0.5um) edge on a razor, stropping it seems to, as you say, microchip the edge.

See thread here:
http://www.badgerandblade.com/vb/sho...591#post479591

I'm looking for input on this as well to better understand the whole honing/stropping process.
Thanks

Oddly (or rather not oddly) when I use a .25 micron diamond paste after the .5 micron 3m paper there a more but finer scratches on the surface @ 100X magnification.

After I strop my razor on a plain leather strop my edge looks smoother under magnification than either the .5 or the .25. I wonder if your strop is dirty?

I do find however that my Wapi likes to have a little bit of "tooth" to catch the hair and seems to shave best lightly stropped after the .25 diamod paste rather than attempting to create a smoother blade.


- Bob.

Can you tell me what kind of strop you are using please?

I am using Tony Millers starter strop as my regular strop.

My pasted strop is just a Lee Valley double sided paddle strop that I have rubbed my .25 paste into.

- Bob