I'm not quite a newbie but I haven't used my Dovo Solingen in a couple years. Being that its been a while, I honed my blade on a Norton 4k/8k (flattened) then stropped and it passed the arm hair test, cleanly taking hair off of my arm with one pass. Granted, my beard was a little longer than usual but not scissor length, I had a harsh shave! I felt alot of pulling, it was almost unbearable! It didn't leave any razor burn or ingrown hairs or any sort of lasting irritation. What could I be doing wrong? Could it still be the razor? P.S., it felt great to break out this baby! (BK12)
Passes arm hair test, but still alot of pulling.
- Thread starter douggiephresh
- Start date
You might get better response posting your question here
http://badgerandblade.com/vb/forumdisplay.php/32-General-Straight-Razor-Talk
Good luck!
http://badgerandblade.com/vb/forumdisplay.php/32-General-Straight-Razor-Talk
Good luck!
about the arn hair shave test you did...you need to check the edge at the heel, toe and in between, both sides, so you need to get good results at 6 points before passing it off as done, and although you mentioned using a 4/8 Norton combo...you really want to start your bevel correction at a 1K grit and not at 4K IMNSHO if you are using synthetic hones
So if you have a 1 K hone I'd dull edge by dragging it across the lip of a glass only using the weight of the razor (no extra force). pull it over the lip once and check to see if the blade will shave arm hair. if it doesn't, you're good to go to work on a 1K hone. if not and it still cuts hair, drag the blade across the glass lip once again and recheck
this isn't just my opinion but, guys new to honing straight razors usually find if they have a poor shaving edge when they finish, the culprit more often than not can be traced back to not getting the bevels corrected properly (ie, they didn't spend enough time at that stage)
if you don't have a 1 K hone, invest in one
Best,
Jake
Reddick Fla.
So if you have a 1 K hone I'd dull edge by dragging it across the lip of a glass only using the weight of the razor (no extra force). pull it over the lip once and check to see if the blade will shave arm hair. if it doesn't, you're good to go to work on a 1K hone. if not and it still cuts hair, drag the blade across the glass lip once again and recheck
this isn't just my opinion but, guys new to honing straight razors usually find if they have a poor shaving edge when they finish, the culprit more often than not can be traced back to not getting the bevels corrected properly (ie, they didn't spend enough time at that stage)
if you don't have a 1 K hone, invest in one
Best,
Jake
Reddick Fla.
The razor is not honed properly I'd guess. You can shave off 8K but it's not the most comfortable.
All good stuff above. I forced myself to shave off the 8k for a while. It will up your game for sure. My big take away was that 4k/8k are worthless without a proper bevel. All other honing and polishing is wasted effort if the razor isn't shaving arm hair off a 1k.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
The bevel IS the edge. You must not I repeat must not move up the progression until you are absolutely positive without a doubt that you have a proper bevel set.
The typical 8k edge is a pretty mediocre shave. But you can squeeze a little more out of that grit of stone by honing with oil or lather, after the normal laps with water. Extremely light pressure is the key, and plenty of laps.
Most of us use a higher grit finisher after an 8k Norton. A Naniwa Superstone 12k is excellent. A C12k is okay, too, though it is a little slower. My favorite is film. 1u film is a good step up after the 8k. You could also hit a balsa strop pasted with 1u diamond and then .25u diamond paste.
Check your bevel first. Without a good bevel from end to end, you are simply wasting your time trying to put a good edge on your razor.
The typical 8k edge is a pretty mediocre shave. But you can squeeze a little more out of that grit of stone by honing with oil or lather, after the normal laps with water. Extremely light pressure is the key, and plenty of laps.
Most of us use a higher grit finisher after an 8k Norton. A Naniwa Superstone 12k is excellent. A C12k is okay, too, though it is a little slower. My favorite is film. 1u film is a good step up after the 8k. You could also hit a balsa strop pasted with 1u diamond and then .25u diamond paste.
Check your bevel first. Without a good bevel from end to end, you are simply wasting your time trying to put a good edge on your razor.
Yeah, double check to make sure the bevel looks ok. Make sure that the razor wasnt missing spots on your face, either, that could mean parts of the edge are dull. If that seems ok, its shaving arm hair, and you can get a shave off it-- albeit a nasty one, you might be "in the neighborhood" enough that you can go back to the stones and make something decent out of the edge. Give it another 50-200 strokes on each grit, then if you have no finishers or pastes, try really stropping it, like 400 on Linen and a couple hundred on leather to help smooth it out.
Slash's advice above seems quite sage, as always, but I'm not sure I would want to put oil or lather on a Norton water-stone, which is porous. Beyond this, I don't think the Norton 4k/8k as given is truly JIS (which seems to be our default scale here). More like 3k/6k JIS, or so I've been told. So a Norton 8k (alleged to be 6k JIS here) followed by a coticule or a finer synth water-stone or aggressive pastes like the T-I alox/diamond (rated at ~10k JIS) would seem to be in order here, apart from attention being given to bevel-setting as mentioned.
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4k=firm pressure for 20 back n forth laps
8k=light pressures..assuming your edge is perfect from 4k
Get a nice finisher..really makes the edge that much better
8k=light pressures..assuming your edge is perfect from 4k
Get a nice finisher..really makes the edge that much better
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
You are correct, Alum. The Norton is not 8k JIS... it is 8k ANSI.
Oil or lather won't hurt a Norton. Particularly lather. Lather presents absolutely no barrier to water holding. As for oil, just don't use any animal or vegetable oils. They oxidize too readily. Any light machine oil or purposed honing oil will work great. Me, I like lather.
Oil or lather won't hurt a Norton. Particularly lather. Lather presents absolutely no barrier to water holding. As for oil, just don't use any animal or vegetable oils. They oxidize too readily. Any light machine oil or purposed honing oil will work great. Me, I like lather.
I say first...let's determine what your definition of passing the arm hair test is.
--- Do you FEEL it when it cuts hair? If so, it ain't right. You gots mo honin' to did.
If it just swipes away the hair, you're there. Almost. How much did you strop that baby? Run it up and down the leather for about 150 swipes. Better?
Yes, check the blade at all points. Use a marker to see if you're honing all sections of the blade.
--- Do you FEEL it when it cuts hair? If so, it ain't right. You gots mo honin' to did.
If it just swipes away the hair, you're there. Almost. How much did you strop that baby? Run it up and down the leather for about 150 swipes. Better?
Yes, check the blade at all points. Use a marker to see if you're honing all sections of the blade.
Yeah. "arm hair test" = shaves hair against skin easily = bevel is set.
"floating arm hair test" = pings arm hair about 1/4" off the skin = pretty ready to go for a shave test.
Good luck!
"floating arm hair test" = pings arm hair about 1/4" off the skin = pretty ready to go for a shave test.
Good luck!
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look up GSSIXGUN on the youtube. he has a great video showing going from a dull razor to shaving sharp with just a norton 4k/8k...he uses the circle method and also a modified japanese method as he calls it...i think he has two different videos.
Can someone explain why you need to dull the edge before going to the bevel set. if you have a razor that was shaving sharp and just needs a rehone why is just going direct to the 4k not acceptable?
Can someone explain why you need to dull the edge before going to the bevel set. if you have a razor that was shaving sharp and just needs a rehone why is just going direct to the 4k not acceptable?
~~~ensures the new edge will be just that and not any part of the last edge
~~~all depends what you want/need to accomplish...if your bevels are corrected and do not need further bevel work, no need to re-establish the bevels. In that situation, a touch up is all that is required
Best,
Jake
Reddick Fla.
I just can't imagine the shaver in the olden days honing and stropping for hundreds of strokes. I read a lot of posts when I started to hone and as a result my strop count started to climb up into the almost 200 realm. I decided to reduce my strop count to 20-40 passes at the most. I've reduced the number of passes I do on stones and/or film too. I'm getting better at honing in general but find that I'm getting great shaves and I'm not doing hundreds of laps.
As with everything else, YMMV, and that's especially true coming from a novice straight shaver and honer.
As with everything else, YMMV, and that's especially true coming from a novice straight shaver and honer.
Slash McCoy
I freehand dog rockets
After about 4 dozen laps, I think you are stropping a dead horse. Certainly there is no need for hundreds of laps on the strop. Now as for honing, that depends on a lot of factors. I have gone over 1000 to clean up a frownie or a chipped edge, and that's just to straighten out the edge. I have finished with 2-300 laps on very fine film with very light pressure, using lather. But in between, yeah... on reasonably fresh films, 40 laps or so at each stage usually does the trick. Dits for most synthetic stones.
