Thread: Honing on the BBW

This forum sometimes has the tendency to make a guy doubt himself, which is good of course. Too much certainty is a dangerous thing.
Anyway, I decided to revisit a hone that has not been part of my regular honing routine for quite some time: the Belgian Blue Whestone.(BBW) Not because it is not a good hone. It just became redundant in my routine at some point, and ended up in my woodshop where it happily finishes chisels and plane blades.
A recent thread, where a new fellow asked if he *could* get by with just a BBW, harvested quite a few different opinions. I said yes, out of earlier experience, but the voices that said no where respectable, and in the end I couldn't be so sure anymore. After all, it was a long time since I honed on the BBW.
So today I installed my photocamera, that's also capable of shooting video, and had a little party together with my BBW.
The razor is a vintage Solingen, by the brand Ophir. It sat in my "razors-to-rehone-box", but just to be beyond suspicion, I first dragged it, edge down, over the BBW. It did not shave anything at that point. I had footage of that too, but due to a mistake I made with deleting old pictures to make space for more video footage, I lost the first takes of my adventure.
It took me about 10 minutes on heavy, mud-like slurry, applying some pressure, to get a bevel going again on that razor, aiming to shave some arm hairs. I stayed on the thick slurry for a number of lower pressured X-strokes once it started getting in line. When the TPT maxed out after that, I went straight to thin slurry. First doing slightly pressured half strokes again. And then a few minutes of very gentle X-strokes. The razor had a bit of a smile and a slight warp, so I added a slight amount of "roll" to all my strokes. You will also be able to see that I place my finger strategically on the blade, if I notice that a certain spot stays behind during bevel correction stages.

At that point, I'm pretty sure I could have performed a decent shave. But since the original quest started as an attempt to help out new guys on a budget that have only access to a BBW, I decided to share you all a neat little secret. For that, you'll have to watch the video. Those who've been around, will recognize the green stuff as HandAmerican's Chromium Oxide, in powder version. I did about 100 laps.
I test shaved that razor, as you're about to see. That edge leaves nothing to be desired. Nothing.

YouTube - Belgian Blue Whetstone honing