Honed... seems sharp... cuts hair like a butterknife. Huh?

I honed 3 razors today. My gold dollar (it had been 6 months ), one marked "Ill-Mo" and "made in Germany", and the troublesome one.
I'm using my coticule and it works quite well so far.

The troublesome one is marked Amendola Brothers/Amendola Special.
I did have two small nicks that took a very long time to hone out, so I touched them up with a small diamond file to work them down a bit.

I re-set the bevel and then went to 1 and 2 layers of tape, which worked great on my other 2 razors. I'd been at it for a while, so maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

The edge looks good, and consistent along the length of the razor, and after testing it on my arm and neck hair, I found it does easily shave thumbnail.
It barely touched the hair on my arm, and did nothing to the hair on my neck, irrespective of angle.
The spine doesn't show a lot of wear. In fact, it barely shows any. Seems weird to me...

Any suggestions, honemeisters?

You did what with a diamond file?

If you knocked down the chip with a diamond file, you have a lot of work ahead of you to get the bevel ready. If you have a 1k stone or thereabouts, use that until you can easily shave arm hair. Then, move on to the coticule...

Any suggestions, honemeisters?

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Well, it probably doesn´t take an honemeister to tell you that.
You kinda might have ruined the edge.
I´m not sure what exactly you did with your DMT file (the awful thing called Breadknifing?)
but I can immagine what it did to the edge of your razor, anyhow.

My recommendation:

Either contact a honemeister for repair,
or repair the damage yourself. I believe (no matter what you did with that file)
you took off the edge completely.
What you want to do now is stay on your heavily slurried Coticule until
it your razor shaves arm hair easily. From there you can work your way up.
It will take some time and you should refresh your slurry often


Good luck

do you have a scope or a loupe to look at the edge?
That file thing you did to your razor could have been done on a stone (not recommended if you do not have the experience) freehand the razor @ `45* then do your regular bevel setting routine.
I'd go back to 1k and work the bevel until the razor shaves arm hair effortlessly @ skin level, then move up the grits.

Coticule honing is very difficult and if I were you I would buy a Norton 4/8k water hone to use when things get difficult and you feel like you're wasting time on the coticule.

Coticules are cool but sometimes when you're new at this you need a faster easier option.

Diamond file is a very very bad idea...

This is how you hone a razor:
1K stone until you can shave your arm at skin level
4K hone until hair cuts easily at mid length on arm
8K level hair just wipes away without catching at midlength level

finish on your choice.

If you had chips in the blade then you could use a low grit norton or a DMT 325 plate for a few stokes with maybe circles.

For coticule honing set the bevel at a 1k stone or if your coticule is fast use with slurry to set an bevel (Use scope to look).
Then slowly dilute the slurry on the coticule after refreshing it to add sharpeness, then finish on water.

That method is harder than it looks.

What I was told to do after chip removal (especially with breadknifed edges) is to look at the edge straight on (like if you were looking at the spine from above, but with the edge) with a light source behind me. If you can see any reflection on the very edge itself, the bevel is still not fully set. You need to make the two planes meet so that light isn't reflecting off the edge (or at least not enough for your eye to see).

Hope that makes sense.

This is true, good point.

What they all said!

Additionally I will remind you that even when bevel setting, you don't want to use too much pressure. By the time you are finished on the 1k you should be using hardly any pressure at all. By the time you finish on your coticule you shouldn't be using anything but the weight of the razor, basically.

Sighting down the edge can be done without a loupe or scope, if you have a very bright light.

You can also, after estimating that you might have taken enough strokes on the 1k, hone just one side of the blade for about 30 light strokes, and see if you can feel a burr on the other side. Then change sides and check for burr on the opposite side. If you get good burrs that seem to be the full length of the blade, then go back to the stone for about 30 very light alternating strokes to get rid of the burr, and move on to your finer stones. Elsewise, give it a bunch more work on the coarse stone.

I wouldn't recommend raising burs on your razor. That's a great method for sharpening knives, but not for razors.

Right, no one in shaving forums known for honing is raising burrs like a kitchen knife.

WilliamIam said:

The troublesome one is marked Amendola Brothers/Amendola Special.
I did have two small nicks that took a very long time to hone out, so I touched them up with a small diamond file to work them down a bit.

Click to expand...

That diamond file, can you tell us anything more about it? If you used what I think it is, they're rather coarse for working on a straight razor, something in between 80 and 300 grit.

The step up to a Coticule is too big a jump. You should work your way up to 600 grit before you can go to the Coticule. In a pinch you can do that on wet&dry sandpaper, that you stick to a known flat surface. Just make sure that the sandpaper sticks very good to that surface, because it may not ripple up in front of the edge...
Try to figure out the grit number of that diamond file, double the number and start on that grit sandpaper (obviously: if you have a sharpening stone of that grit, use that). Hence: diamond file: 80 grit, continue with 300 - 600.
I skipped the 150, because 300 grit is as low as you would ever need to use on a straight razor. Even if there was no cutting bevel at all, 300 grit is still sufficient as a starting point.
Important!: as long as you are on these coarse grits, put tape on the spine to protect it from wear. Use the lightest pressure while working on sandpaper or low grit hones. A razor is a delicate object. Pressure on a coarse hone will tear the thinest part of the bevel apart. That is probably what happened with the diamond file. You were able to polish the bevel sides with your Coticule, without actually refining the bevel tip. That is why it shaves poorly.
When you're ready with the 600, the razor must shave arm hair. Next remove the tape, and drag the razor with its edge down once over a glass object (a beer bottle works well), without any pressure other than its weight. This will remove the ability to shave arm hair. It forces you to work on the Coticule till the bevel is perfect. Because you removed the tape, the new bevel has a slightly lower angle. The edge will not start shaving arm hair again before you complete the new bevel. On the Coticule, it is okay to use some pressure. Actually, you need to use some pressure on a Coticule.

Once you have a good bevel off the Coticule, do what you've done with your other razors. If it worked on them, it will now also work on your Amendola.


Kind regards,
Bart.

heirkb said:

What I was told to do after chip removal (especially with breadknifed edges) is to look at the edge straight on (like if you were looking at the spine from above, but with the edge) with a light source behind me. If you can see any reflection on the very edge itself, the bevel is still not fully set. You need to make the two planes meet so that light isn't reflecting off the edge (or at least not enough for your eye to see).

Hope that makes sense.

Click to expand...

Actually, that's exactly what I did. I was going to share that method. It helps having 20:13 vision. We have some exceptionally bright lights in the kitchen that gave me a nice, smooth, minute iridiscent strip along the edge.

The two tiny spots I touched up with the diamond file (the type found on a leatherman, and very fine grit) were less than 0.25mm. In other words a .5mm mechanical pencil lead would not have fit into the spots.

I've used the dilucot method of honing with the gold dollar with good results. There's always more room to learn though. That's what my purpose was in buying some oldies that are in decent shape - a good reason to practice honing and I'll have something besides the GD to use too.

I've been using heavy slurry to set the bevel with no tape, then one strip of tape and light slurry, then two strips with light slurry diluted down to pure water, rinsing after each 2-way pass. After setting the bevel, the other two shaved arm hair no problem. I have bald spots to prove it

I'll do the glass trick, then go back to the bevel. I think I mostly lost my patience and need to re-set the bevel. Neither of the razors had significant damage to the edges. I just need to start over and be patient. Thanks for chiming in. I'll see if I can find out the grit of the diamond file I used.

WilliamIam said:

Actually, that's exactly what I did. I was going to share that method. It helps having 20:13 vision. We have some exceptionally bright lights in the kitchen that gave me a nice, smooth, minute iridiscent strip along the edge.

The two tiny spots I touched up with the diamond file (the type found on a leatherman, and very fine grit) were less than 0.25mm. In other words a .5mm mechanical pencil lead would not have fit into the spots.

I've used the dilucot method of honing with the gold dollar with good results. There's always more room to learn though. That's what my purpose was in buying some oldies that are in decent shape - a good reason to practice honing and I'll have something besides the GD to use too.

I've been using heavy slurry to set the bevel with no tape, then one strip of tape and light slurry, then two strips with light slurry diluted down to pure water, rinsing after each 2-way pass. After setting the bevel, the other two shaved arm hair no problem. I have bald spots to prove it

I'll do the glass trick, then go back to the bevel. I think I mostly lost my patience and need to re-set the bevel. Neither of the razors had significant damage to the edges. I just need to start over and be patient. Thanks for chiming in. I'll see if I can find out the grit of the diamond file I used.

Click to expand...

I've found that even breadknifing (if that is what you did) a blade a tiny bit can lead to reflection starting to form on the edge. And that reflection is really tough to get rid of even when it's tiny.

wow, does anybody here remember the days when Breadknifing was "invented" as a joke?
I really don´t think it was meant to be used.
I see no reason why one wants to breadknife a blade.
If one is to remove chips, why not do it the proper way? Stay on a coarse stone until they are gone.
No thick edges, no reflections on the very edge...

Breadknifing is really a thing that gets newbies started

LessLemming said:

wow, does anybody here remember the days when Breadknifing was "invented" as a joke?
I really don´t think it was meant to be used.
I see no reason why one wants to breadknife a blade.
If one is to remove chips, why not do it the proper way? Stay on a coarse stone until they are gone.
No thick edges, no reflections on the very edge...

Breadknifing is really a thing that gets newbies started

Click to expand...

There is nothing wrong with "breadknifing" (except that I do not like the word). When a cutting tool has damage along the edge, it's perfectly acceptable practice to first remove the damage and reinstate the proper edge curve (straight or smiling in case of a razor) and next complete the cutting bevel again. By making these 2 separate processes, it is easier to control, and one is less likely to remove more steel than necessary or end up with a less that perfect edge curve.

In essence, when an edge has a chip missing, all steel that extends beyond the bottom of they chip must be removed. When the job is done, is makes no difference how that steel was removed.
Obviously, repairing damage is not the same as sharpening, and the tools and methods used can quickly cause more damage when used without proper knowledge and skill. That counts for breadknifing as much as for working out the chip with coarser hones.

I have used both methods, and for larger damage I absolutely prefer to first reinstate the proper edge curve.

Kind regards,
Bart.

Why not use a diamond file ? Most of the guys here use DMT hones which are horribly aggressive . DMT's belong out in the garage . Good for lawnmower blade restorals. They have no place on this forum.

cityjim

cityjim said:

Why not use a diamond file ? Most of the guys here use DMT hones which are horribly aggressive . DMT's belong out in the garage . Good for lawnmower blade restorals. They have no place on this forum.

cityjim

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Wait, you think a DMT plate is trash (despite plenty of evidence to the contrary) but are fine with using a belt sander? Are you serious or do you just go around trolling?

DMT plates are very commonly used by people that hone their own razors. The 1200 continuous is used very often by people to set their bevels, actually I even used the interrupted without a problem. The 325 Continuous plate is used all the time for lapping stones...and the little credit card size 325 grits used for slurry stones.

makes no difference how that steel was removed

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Hi Bart, that´s not necessarily the case and the reason why I would not vote for Breadknifing.
If you remove steel in a perpendicular angle to the cutting edge,
you actually remove the point where the to sides of the bevel meet.
If the chip to be removed goes rather deep into the steel,
the edge is taken off so heavily, you have to remove extra metal,
to restore it (ie to make the two sides of the bevel meet to an edge again).
The waste of metal isn´t that much of a big deal, but it takes much time
and it gets many newbies started to hone on a coarse stone without getting any cutting edge at all!

If the work is done using normal strokes on a coarse stone,
the edge never gets taken off completely.

Otherwise I see why people do it, I just would not recommend it.
Especially to unexperienced newbies

LessLemming said:

Hi Bart, that´s not necessarily the case and the reason why I would not vote for Breadknifing.
If you remove steel in a perpendicular angle to the cutting edge,
you actually remove the point where the to sides of the bevel meet.
If the chip to be removed goes rather deep into the steel,
the edge is taken off so heavily, you have to remove extra metal,
to restore it (ie to make the two sides of the bevel meet to an edge again).
The waste of metal isn´t that much of a big deal, but it takes much time
and it gets many newbies started to hone on a coarse stone without getting any cutting edge at all!

If the work is done using normal strokes on a coarse stone,
the edge never gets taken off completely.

Otherwise I see why people do it, I just would not recommend it.
Especially to unexperienced newbies

Click to expand...

No, you end up removing the same amount of steel, but with breadknifing followed by bevel recreation, you do it in two steps instead of one. I'm sure that Bart will make some diagrams to make this more clear.