Anyone here regularly shave off a Spyderco UF? I've owned one for awhile and tested it a time or two. Curious if anyone here likes to shave off one, and what razor/s they use it with.
Spyderco UF shavers?
- Thread starter SliceOfLife
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Is that with, or without stropping? 
I have one that I got for knives, but I have never used it on a razor. I have read that they are sometimes not very flat. I have not checked mine for flatness. If you try to lap them to make them flat, then they will assume the grit of the stone used to lap them. So that is a problem. Mine is certainly flat enough to polish a knife edge, but I anxiously await to hear what others think.
I have a Spyderco 302F and it was absolutely useless for razors. Indeed, Spyderco only garanties a flatness that is of no use for fine blades like razors. With a very hard stone like that you will grind all kinds of false bevels if the stone is not trued.
My attempts to true it so far didn't get me very far. I trued it on a very cheap 60 grid chinese diamondplate, then a 150 grid and then a 240 grid. It is still not smooth enough to be anywhere near the ~J8000 grid rating that i hoped it to be. Most likely it will need other finer diamondplates to condition it to a degree, that makes it usefull for me.
All i can say so far is, that it is a very labourintensive project to transform this stone into anything like all the Spyderco fanboys out there claim it to be...
My attempts to true it so far didn't get me very far. I trued it on a very cheap 60 grid chinese diamondplate, then a 150 grid and then a 240 grid. It is still not smooth enough to be anywhere near the ~J8000 grid rating that i hoped it to be. Most likely it will need other finer diamondplates to condition it to a degree, that makes it usefull for me.
All i can say so far is, that it is a very labourintensive project to transform this stone into anything like all the Spyderco fanboys out there claim it to be...
I've always been curious about them. A few years ago, there was a cook on the forum, thegreatwhiteshavealoo, or something like that, who was using a Spyderco UF for razors and liked it quite a bit. Attraction for me is that they are used dry. Also, I don't think they're supposed to be lapped. Just cleaned with cleanser (e.g., Bon Ami) and a sponge or light scouring pad.
I had one. Sold it some time ago. I used it for razors and liked it quite a lot. Just didn't use it enough. It's not as fun as a natural.
I have a Spyderco UF that works wonderfully for razors. Perhaps I got lucky and got a flat one, but my steel rule shows it to be very flat. I read somewhere that they have improved the flatness in later production so I ordered mine straight from Spyderco to avoid a hone that had been laying on a shelf for years. I shave off of it occasionally and like its performance. My day in and day out edge is a coticule edge for the comfort, but the UF will definitely bump up the keenness without becoming evil on the comfort scale. I am cursed with sensitive skin and many synthetic edges and most particularly diamond paste will leave me tender in short order. The UF is my favorite of the synthetic edges I have tried. I do a full coti progression and finish with the UF and it does not seem to completely kill the coti comfort.
I hope replying to a post this old isn't considered bad taste. I have the full progression of Spyderco stones. Bought them for knives when I was still shaving with cartridge razors. The medium is considered 3000 grit, the fine is considered 8000 grit and the uf is considered 12000 grit. I have used the uf as a finisher before and it seems to me to be much much finer than 12000 grit. Maybe it was my newbie shaving technique, but it almost seemed too sharp. Maybe I'll use it again some time to check again. Sharpening on it is like sharpening on glass and it takes a bunch of passes for the stone to show any darkening at all. I have never checked my stones for flatness, but it seems flat to me. I usually clean it with Barkeepers Friend and it makes it look like new and makes it cut slightly faster. Once it loads with metal it seems to cut finer. You should never need to flatten it and don't need to use water. I tried it with baby oil once and it did not affect the stone (didn't lake the way it felt to sharpen on it though).
I had one when I first started straight shaving. It wound up having 16 hours of hard use on it before I mustered a shaving edge. Extremely sharp, and smooth, too. I stupidly sold that stone and some others. I regretted it so much I bought another. It's just not the same. I am convinced that the stones break in similar to Arkansas Stones, and until i match the hours upon hours on this new stone, it just won't do what I want. The first stone was quite out of flat, the new one is dead flat, so that isn't the deciding factor.
Thank you for the descriptions of all the stones used as a sequence. Like I said a few weeks back, I've always been curious about them. Your description of the UF as yielding a "too-sharp" edge makes me wonder if the stone might instead be used quite sparingly after the fine Spyderco--i.e., just a handful of passes rather than many passes in seeking to generate swarf.
Yes, I think it is similar to the break in for an ark. I have sharpened countless knives on that uf before I ever got into straight razors and it is seriously smooth. It feels like no other stone when I rub it. It feels like buttery glass. I bought it maybe ten years ago, so it probably isnt as flat as what they manufacture today, but I never worried too much about how flat a stone was as long as it wasn't visually warped.
That might produce good results. It really is a surprisingly fast cutter for such a fine stone. It really is underrated. I have never used the 3 inch wide version of this stone, I always used the 2 inch wide one. It might be worth it to get the wider one. I've read that stropping on newspaper after the uf can calm the edge down, but I have never tried it.
Wider is not necessarily better for me right now. I'm with the lateral stroke, on a point-by-point rather than linear basis. (Also cuts down on length that way.) Stropping on newspaper may be akin to stropping on an old pair of dungarees, just above the knee. Works great with knives in any case. Might be worthwhile to give it a shot to calm things.
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People used to say that newprint ink was abrasive and something like 30k-120k (depending on who you asked) if my memory serves correctly. I'll actually look and see if I can find any evidence of this under the scope at some point... but that was the argument for doing it a few years back.
You are correct. I have never tried stropping on newsprint. Might not do a darn thing. What i want to do right now is finish up on .3 um lapping film, just haven't gotten around to ordering any. Please do post pictures if you try the newsprint Slice; i love looking at your microscope pictures!
I had an edge that was just a bit off and could not get anything from hundreds of laps on news print. After 50 laps on hemp the razors HHT came right up. Granted small sample size, but I was really hoping that the newsprint would work. I was planning on mounting newsprint on rings and giving them out to newbies. After my tests I concluded that I would be doing them a disservice. YMMV
