Thread: What's the general consensus on honing a butterknifed blade?

fastest bevel setter would be the lowest grit stone 220, but if it leaves very deep scratches go up to 400 for example. You just need to make sure you have the stones to follow and refine the scratch pattern on the bevel.
All that being said, I'd go for 1k and see if this will work before moving to lower grits.

Originally Posted by mainaman

fastest bevel setter would be the lowest grit stone 220, but if it leaves very deep scratches go up to 400 for example. You just need to make sure you have the stones to follow and refine the scratch pattern on the bevel.
All that being said, I'd go for 1k and see if this will work before moving to lower grits.

Awesome, that's pretty much what I've done while polishing this blade, I tried 320 grit, but it was quite slow in cutting, so I moved down grits until 80. Still have ~10 hours of hand sanding at 80 grit left.

You'll need to go a bit higher than 4k to get a comfortable shave I would think.

Assuming you get your razor successfully honed up to your 4k stone, you probably will want to go up to 6k or (ideally) 8k to really give a smooth finish to the edge.

A good budget honing set up is this one:

Amazon.com: Norton Waterstone Starter Kit: 220/1000 grit stone, 4000/8000 grit stone, SiC flattening stone: Home & Garden

It has all the stones you will need, and will give you years of reliable service. If you're getting into the restoration side of things in a big way then some proper hones would be a really good investment.

Honing a damaged blade - Straight Razor Place Wiki


I highly suggest tracking that back to the original thread as many questions are asked and answered there...

You are going to need patience.

Even on a DMT resetting the bevel on a breadknifed blade takes time.

I would look to getting a Norton kit as linked above by Stubear. In this post here Lynn said," Please pay attention to this.

I have received hundreds of razors from folks with simply ruined edges as a result of sandpaper efforts, not to mention the scratched blades ."

Here is another by Lynn on the topic,"I hate sandpaper for honing.

It's a pet peeve based on all the razors I see with scratch marks all over the blade and an edge that needs a full restoration every single time.

Personal opinion only.

Thanks for the indulgence,"

If that is all you have and it is working for you good luck but if Lynn said it I believe it so it is waterstones for me.