Very informative thread! Thanks! Would be great to see and read a bit on "washboard" honing techniques for an asymmetrical japanese blade
Comprehensive Guide to Basic to Intermediate Honing
- Thread starter leighton
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #22
Thats an advanced honing technique and beyond my current willingness to compile all the info & write it down.
Thats an advanced honing technique and beyond my current willingness to compile all the info & write it down.
You are so lazy... haha.
Thanks for taking the time to put this together. I learned a few new things.
Thanks for the great post! I needed this. Should be stickied.
This is an awesome post for sure.
I keep coming back to it and wishing it was here when I started honing not too long ago
.
You would have saved me some serious confusion.
I keep coming back to it and wishing it was here when I started honing not too long ago
.You would have saved me some serious confusion
.
OK, so I have a question regarding honing. I've seen a few things that mentioned that overhoning can lead to an edge that breaks up when stropped, and seen a few statements that reference "resetting the bevel", but I haven't found any information on how to do just that. Do I drag the edge off on a hone, then start over?
Just curious, as I just tried for the first time to get a well honed edge on minimal tools, and as soon as I stopped the blade, the edge just fell apart.
Any tips?
Just curious, as I just tried for the first time to get a well honed edge on minimal tools, and as soon as I stopped the blade, the edge just fell apart.
Any tips?
Great post Leighton 
Was the blade rusty?
Overhoning is pretty hard to do without trying/using excess pressure.
To reset the bevel, it is only when you have no bevel from either breadknifing, or polishing/sanding the blade.
If your edge isn't rusty, and it deteriorates when stropping, go back to your highest grit(or 8000 grit) using no pressure at all, until you bring it back to shaving sharp.
Then do whatever final polishing you want(12k stone, pasted strop, Shapton 30k
) then strop.For honing, no pressure is key, especially for the final stages of polishing.
Thanks Fnord5 - I'll give it another go. (no rust.)
Thanks for the post!
Richard
Richard
I think you have a problem with at least one of the following (in order of their likelihood):
- you cannot evaluate your edge properly - here's where you can learn more about various tests http://straightrazorplace.com/srpwiki/index.php/Sharpness_tests_explained
- you have not done enough work on the 1k - learn how to use the TNT too
- your stokes are terrible (e.g. lifting the spine)
Last edited:
I don't use the pyramid method any more, but it's what I started with and what I used for the first 3-4 months. The burrs on a razor can be as small as 1 micron and still have a huge negative impact. You really need an electron microscope to see them directly, though there are ways to detect them indirectly. But this is one of the reasons that honing razors is so different from knives - most of the sharpness indicators we use for knives aren't really useful for razors, because knives simply don't get that sharp and don't have that hard of steel, and don't have that acute of an angle. Razors will shave armhair long before they're sharp enough to shave your face with, the thumbnail test for burrs and consistent sharpness will roll an edge sending you back to the low-grit hones, tricks like backhoning that make it easier to get a sharp knife edge will quickly create a huge burr by razor standards that will fold over on the first stroke and gash your face. So you're forced to hone the hard way, edge first, with very little feedback as to what's really going on at the edge. Eventually you discover signs you can use to guide you, to give you some hints about how the edge is going. Looking at the way the water flows in front of the edge, listening to the sound of the steel scraping over the hone, feeling for the slight changes in resistance and suction between the hone and edge. Shallow cuts in your thumb pad, filleting arm hairs, flexing the edge and looking for interference patterns in the reflected sunlight. All of these provide clues as to how the edge is progressing, though ultimately the only clue that really matters is how it shaves the next day. But absent an electron microscope you're looking at indirect signals, subject to interpretation and variability, and it can take awhile to develop the experience to do this consistently. If it has nothing else to recommend it, the pyramid method has the signal advantage that it doesn't require much experience in order to work very well.
Last edited:
There is no more valuable test than the TNT. If your razor does not pass it, it will never, ever give an acceptable shave. But to obliquely reference mparker762's post, you don't want to use the TNT after setting the bevel. Doing so after 2-3K hones, approximately, will likely ruin the edge.
Last edited:
- Thread starter
- #38
I don't understand. Are you saying that after the 1k stone, the blade passes all the tests, and then you move to the 8k and then the blade no longer cuts your arm hair?
If so, your doing something horribly wrong, as Gugi said. Probably lifting the spine and destroying the bevel.
If not, and what your saying is that the razor is not getting sharp enough for you to shave with, but still cuts, then you can either tough it out and do an inordinate number of strokes on the 8k until the razor shaves, or you can buy a 4k stone.
ok, so they were shaving you fine at some point?
you did get the wrong hone then, you wanted the 4000/8000.
the set that you have will be very tricky to get a shaving edge off, so yes i'd say you'd like to get a norton 4000 as well.
i would suggest once you have good bevel to proceed with pyramids - read mparker's recent posts in the recent pyramid thread if you want even further perspective on why your chances for success are better that way.
there's not all that much to honing. i like alan's perspective on it - only two things to learn
(1) a light and consistent stroke.
(2) when to switch hones.
Very helpful post. Thank you!
Similar threads
