Sharpening

[rstrawsb]

I have a new Dovo and it just isn't keen enoght to shave with. I have a JAA Champion Razor hone that am honing the razor with. It seems to be getting sharper but it's still not as sharp as my double edge. I have read most of the FAQs and I have the mechanics hone honing under control. My question is how many passes should a new razor take to be shave ready?

[ouch]

Unlike knives, continued honing on a stone won't keep getting your blade sharper and sharper. You may even go too far and develop a burr- good for knives, bad for razors. A very light hand is required for honing- save your energy for stropping!

[rstrawsb]

I can cut paper and shave a little hair from my arm but the hone doesn't seem to be helping much... I'll start stroping!

[straightman]

rstrawsb,

If you have a paddle strop (I'd get one if you don't have one) try about 30-50 round trips (try 30 first) with .50 diamond paste, then 30-50 round trips on a hanging strop. I just purchased a new TI and this routine has definitely done the trick. It seems the razor gets sharper each time I use the pasted paddle strop followed by the hanging strop. And I haven't had to touch my brand new Norton 4000/8000 water hone yet.

Tom

[Rik]

I have a new Dovo and it just isn't keen enoght to shave with. I have a JAA Champion Razor hone that am honing the razor with. It seems to be getting sharper but it's still not as sharp as my double edge. I have read most of the FAQs and I have the mechanics hone honing under control. My question is how many passes should a new razor take to be shave ready?

Greetings Ron,

A new razor should only need a few very light passes on a Norton 8000 if that. Stropping it on a pasted strop treated with 0.5-micron chromium oxide compound and finishing on a treated leather strop should produce hair-splitting results.

As a rule, I use a pyramid sharpening routine learned from the SRP gents as follows:

Set# 4000 Norton 8000 Norton

1 1 5 test
2 1 5 test
3 3 5 test
4 5 5 test
5 10 5 test

This is only to be used as a general guide - it's not written in stone.

I move on from this only after the razor passes the hanging hair test along the length of the blade on both sides. I would then move to 15k water stone and then on to compound pastes. I finish with 120 passes on my daily strop made of Red Diamond conditioned honing leather.

The gentleman you want to get in touch with is randydance062449 (Randy Tuttle). I've used razors sharpened from the major honemeisters and none have equaled his razors in keenness.

[rtaylor61]

Rik,

Tell me more about your daily strop!

Randy

[Rik]

I guess it's no longer my daily strop since I've reincorporated DEs into my rotation. But It's the Leather Stropping System by Hand American I reviewed a while ago. It's the only one I use, but I have a large variety of leather strips I use on it - each dedicated for a specific compound.

[randydance062449]

Hello and welcome to the world of straight razor shaving!

Most new razors arrive not quite shave ready. The factory simply does not have the time to hone them as well as we would like. The first problem arises because of the mackines they use at the factory to create the bevel. They use two spinning abrasive disk's, mounted horizontally, to create the bevel. The problem arises because they do not lay the razor flat on the disks. Thus the bevel is not quite right. Then they use a large Belgian coticule to finish honing the blade. The motion they use on that hone most of us would describe as sloppy or wrong. But it works because of the original angle used to create the bevel.
However, the difference between the grits of the spinning disks and the Belgian hone are to large. As a result the angle of the bevel is off slightly and the bevel scratch pattern is not refined. It is still to corase. Thus the poor shaves.

In your case you have been honing the razor for awhile. i do not know for how long. Lets remove the possibility of an overhoned edge first. First perform either the thumb test or the hanging hair test( not the thumbnail test) to establish a basis for comparison.Perform 10-15 back honing strokes(just the exact opposite of a normal honing stroke) followed by 10-15 normal honing strokes. Now perform the tests again and notice the change.

The next step is to go to a finer grade of abrasive. My choice would be to use an abrasive pasted paddle strop. My choice of grits would be 3 micron( or 2 micron), 1 micron, 0.5 micron and 0.25 micron. Some people find the 0.25 a bit to sharp.
Try 30 laps on each grit, carefully cleaning the razor between grits so as to avoid cross contamination. Then test shave. Repeat the abrasive pasted strop routine using 20 laps on each grit until the razor gives you a good shave.

Hope this helps,

[Joe Lerch]

I have 2 comments. First of all, don't try to get your razor as sharp as a fresh razor blade. It's too high a standard.

You've gotten some good avice from Randy, but be aware of the equvalence between pastes and other abrasives.
3 micron = 8K
1 micron = 14K
.5 micron = 50K
.25 micron = 100K.

If you're using a fine barber hone, it's about 8K-10K, so the 3 micron strop wouldn't make much sense. The 1 micron would. And I would follow with a .5 micron. Be aware that as the grit gets finer you need to do more passes to get a noticeable result.

I think it's worthwhile to get a microscope. Radio Shack has a $10 pocket microscope that's adequate. You could do a thumbnail test to discover a wire edge, but you can actually see it under the microscope. Once you get the edge straight and even with your coarsest grit, you move on. With the barber hone it may take some time. The 1 micron is next and you work on that until you see no improvement on your sharpness est (whatever you use). Then you move on to the .5 micron and work on it until you get no further improvement. At that point, the edge should be keen.

[rstrawsb]

Thanks to everyone for posting... I guess I need to add a paddle strop and a cheap microscope to my list of purchases. I have it sharp enough to cut everything but my beard. I have tried the hanging hair and it did cut it. I could swear I heard it pop. It just isn't consistant across the blade.


Thanks Again,
Ron

[Laz in Tampa]

You need to get it consistent across the whole edge. Go back to a slightly coarser grit to establish a true bevel, then work on the fine tuning of the edge.
A cheap way would be to get some 2000 grit sandpaper from the auto parts store, and lay it on a wet countertop (or similar flat surface). Keep the paper wet and inspect the edge under a bright light until you see a consistent, good bevel on the whole length. No shiny sports, which indicate dull spots or nicks.

[randydance062449]

Hello Laz,

Just a question about the 2000 grit sandpaper. Have you had good results with this? My experience has been that ~1000 grit sandpaper is as fine as I can use. The 2000 grit sandpaper slightly rounded my edges so that the 8000 Stone had a difficult time flattening out the bevel.

You need to get it consistent across the whole edge. Go back to a slightly coarser grit to establish a true bevel, then work on the fine tuning of the edge.
A cheap way would be to get some 2000 grit sandpaper from the auto parts store, and lay it on a wet countertop (or similar flat surface). Keep the paper wet and inspect the edge under a bright light until you see a consistent, good bevel on the whole length. No shiny sports, which indicate dull spots or nicks.

[Laz in Tampa]

I have used the Scary Sharp method and 3M microgrit papers for establishing an edge and honing. I suggested the wet/dry sandpaper from the auto parts store due to it's availability to almost everyone. I wonder why the 2k grit did this?

I will have to experiment with this a bit, and see if I get the same results.


BTW, how's the custom razor coming along?

[TstebinsB]

You've gotten some good avice from Randy, but be aware of the equvalence between pastes and other abrasives.
3 micron = 8K
1 micron = 14K
.5 micron = 50K
.25 micron = 100K.

Not to drudge up an old thread but I have a question about the micron to grit conversions. I'm going to get diamond pastes and I've decided to get 1 and 0.5.

Here's how Norton equates its stones to micron size:
3 micron = 8K
1 micron = they have no equivalent stone
.5 micron = 15K

Does anyone know which conversion is more accurate? If it's Joe's, then I'll get both 1 and 0.5 micron sizes. But if Norton's is right, then I might as well just get the 0.5 diamond paste. Thanks.

[mparker762]

Unfortunately there are a couple of different grit rating systems around. For example, the Norton 8k hone uses a 3 micron abrasive particle, but the Shapton 8k hone uses a 1.8 micron abrasive particle.

[Joe Lerch]

Not to drudge up an old thread but I have a question about the micron to grit conversions. I'm going to get diamond pastes and I've decided to get 1 and 0.5.

Here's how Norton equates its stones to micron size:
3 micron = 8K
1 micron = they have no equivalent stone
.5 micron = 15K

Does anyone know which conversion is more accurate? If it's Joe's, then I'll get both 1 and 0.5 micron sizes. But if Norton's is right, then I might as well just get the 0.5 diamond paste. Thanks.

OK. Here's the whole story.

I say 50K for .5 and 100K for .25, because that's what the diamond companies say. You can find a diamond paste chart at straightrazorplace.com.

In stone grits there are many standards. The two that concern us are the US and Japanese. The traditional US standard uses a screen, and if a particle passes through the screen, it's that size. In other words, grit size is the LARGEST particle in the mix. The Japanese use the average size. So, they will have twice the grit number compared to the US.

The US matches sandpaper, so a 2000 grit stone is like 2000 sandpaper, but the Japanese size for the same grit is 4000. The Norton waterstones like the 4k/8K use the Japanese system, so if you wanted to use sandpaper of the grit, it is really 2K/4K. A 15K grit by the US standard is .5 micron (30K Japanese), and 30K grit US (60K Japanese) is .25 micron.

When you see that a 15K is .5 micron, that's the US standard. For a waterstone it's 30K (see a Shapton chart).

In any case, you can rely on the numbers I gave you when comparing paste and waterstones. They're a combination of what the diamond paste companies tell you about .5 and .25 microns and the Japanese standard for waterstones, which Norton also uses for its waterstones.

The moral of the story is that you always need to know what system is being used for the grit you're looking at.

[TstebinsB]

Thank you for the clarification.

[randydance062449]

Good post Joe!

[Steerpike]

What a headache! Using the largest particle size makes the most sense by far, so why use the average size? Crazy...

[Laager]

I say 50K for .5 and 100K for .25, because that's what the diamond companies say.

Doesn't make sense to me.

If 0.5 micron is 50K then 0.25 micron should be 200K, as four 0.25 micron particles fit in the space that one 0.5 micron particle takes.