Honing SE Blades - WIN!

dilly-b · May 20, 2011

I discovered today that one can indeed easily, cheaply, and wickedly effectively HONE SE BLADES! Conventional wisdom is that you can't hone them because the spine isn't thick enough to get an effective and uniform angle on the hone. The idea comes from the str8 people who tape the spines, and it works in my experience ridiculously well. just a little piece of black electrical tape. Lathered my $6 "no-name" barber hone and did 7 laps using very light and even pressure on the blade. Stropped on the leg of my jeans and was shocked by the sweet, sharp, even double bevel that glints in the light. The blade? A PAL Blue, a brand I had written off as total, tugging crap - the result? With an OCMM, it was less of a shave and more of a polish - incredible! I never dreamed that such a crappy blade could be so dramatically improved with very little work. I'm guessing SE users out there already have a brush, soap, black electrical tape and jeans so all you need is a barber hone and they are cheap if you go with a no-name brand. I have also honed a Treet, took about twice the laps to get a good bevel. Next I'm going to try to hone a blade from the hardware store and see what kind of a shave I can get! :thumbup:

Proinsias · May 20, 2011

Nice, I've only got two se blades left but I've got a few nice hones and tape lying around. Will try this soon.

dilly-b · May 20, 2011

I shudder to think of the edge you can get with a coticule or Jnat, I just used a small (3") Swaty knockoff :thumbup:

Proinsias said:
Nice, I've only got two se blades left but I've got a few nice hones and tape lying around. Will try this soon.

dilly-b · May 20, 2011

That's about the same as a barber hone so why not? YMMV. For me it improved a PAL beyond recognition, I'm still fondling my glassy face :lol:

KcHighLife said:
I do not have a great magnifying glass and the most fine hone that I have is a 8,000 waterstone. That should do the trick after I have mostly used up the blade don't you think?

Alucard73 · May 20, 2011

I don't use st8s so don't know how to hone, did you do it by hand? What angle and how much pressure. I do have an old Swaty someone gave me a while back.

dilly-b · May 20, 2011

Easy. The spine + tape angle is perfect, you don't have to 'do' anything more than put on the tape to get the angle right. All you have to do is use just enough uniform pressure to keep it flat on the hone, and be able to move the blade, edge leading on the stroke. Rotate the spine for the return stroke so you don't roll the edge. Lather up the Swaty and give it a go. The PAL was pretty soft, 7 laps was all it took.

Alucard73 said:
I don't use st8s so don't know how to hone, did you do it by hand? What angle and how much pressure. I do have an old Swaty someone gave me a while back.

Alucard73 · May 20, 2011

I wonder if you could make a handle similar to those old kampf handles but designed to hold newer blades. You may have to do a YouTube video.

Doodi1 · May 20, 2011

dilly-b said:
I discovered today that one can indeed easily, cheaply, and wickedly effectively HONE SE BLADES! Conventional wisdom is that you can't hone them because the spine isn't thick enough to get an effective and uniform angle on the hone. The idea comes from the str8 people who tape the spines, and it works in my experience ridiculously well. just a little piece of black electrical tape. Lathered my $6 "no-name" barber hone and did 7 laps using very light and even pressure on the blade. Stropped on the leg of my jeans and was shocked by the sweet, sharp, even double bevel that glints in the light. The blade? A PAL Blue, a brand I had written off as total, tugging crap - the result? With an OCMM, it was less of a shave and more of a polish - incredible! I never dreamed that such a crappy blade could be so dramatically improved with very little work. I'm guessing SE users out there already have a brush, soap, black electrical tape and jeans so all you need is a barber hone and they are cheap if you go with a no-name brand. I have also honed a Treet, took about twice the laps to get a good bevel. Next I'm going to try to hone a blade from the hardware store and see what kind of a shave I can get!

I would love to try this honing, where can I buy one of these "no name" hones? :001_smile

filedog · May 20, 2011

Hmm. I'm pretty good at honing my pocket knives, so I had a go at a dull GEM blade once. With my usual knife honing technique on a CRO2
impregnated leather hone, I was unable to make it any sharper....probably DULLED it. This thread has peaked my interest though, I will try the tape method.

drews50 · May 20, 2011

I just happen to have a stack of those worthless PAL blades sitting around. Thanks for the info.

ShavelockFoams · May 21, 2011

Interesting, I will have to give this a try. Thanks for posting it.

dilly-b · May 21, 2011

So today was my experiment with Chicom SE hardware blades, the aptly named "Do It" brand. They took a nice edge, but it took more work than the PAL and the Treet. Shave was smooth and comfortable, but on pass #5 with the OCMM, using foolhardy angles and pressure, I couldn't get past SAS level of close. Then I had a thought, maybe these blades are too short... Sure enough, they are 1mm shorter than the shaving blades... D'oh! Maybe a good choice for beginners though, much safer LOL. Threw in my honed PAL blade and 1 pass later my face is back to glassy.

The next question is, are all hardware blades 1mm shorter than shaving blades? Home Depot sells 100 Personnas made in USA by ASR for $10. Are those the right size? If so, that should probably be everybody's choice. You could probably get a month out of each blade. As it is, I have 6 PALS, 10 Treets and 20 GEMs - I figure that should last me three years or so :thumbup:

dilly-b · May 21, 2011

UPDATE - visibly improved edge on GEM SS blade. Seriously guys, you don't realize the luxurious shaves you've been missing out on by using dull "stock" SE blades :thumbup:

dilly-b · May 21, 2011

Hey, you're welcome! Happy to contribute! If anybody out there actually tries this (besides me), please post your results - I'm interested to see how the mileage varies! :wink2:

Something tells me it probably will, but for me there is NO WAY I will EVER use an "unimproved" SE blade ever again! :w00t:

KcHighLife said:
What an awesome thread Dilly! Thanks for all the info.

dilly-b · May 21, 2011

The barber hone I used is a vintage Austro-Hungarian that is Swaty-type material. It is "Goldene Medaille" brand. It is pretty fine, maybe 8k, but can also cut fast if need be. It's very small, 3" so that's probably how I got it on Ebay for $6. HAD people have inflated the prices on "name brand" barber hones, but 'unboxed' brand x ones like mine are plentiful, cheap, and all pretty much do what a barber hone is supposed to do. YMMV. :wink2:

Doodi1 said:
I would love to try this honing, where can I buy one of these "no name" hones?

ShavinBacon · May 22, 2011

Having never tried straights, how often do you have to hone the blades? Stupid question I know but do you hone them once in the beginning or after every shave? My curiousity is peaked to try this.

Wil Dorenbos · May 22, 2011

dilly-b said:
UPDATE - visibly improved edge on GEM SS blade. Seriously guys, you don't realize the luxurious shaves you've been missing out on by using dull "stock" SE blades

How about the coating? I can see myself honing carbon, but coated SS?

Klopstick · May 22, 2011

I just did a test on some Gem Stainless and some modern carbon blades from Walgreens. What is the spine thickness on yours? A single, and even double layer of tape isn't nearly enough to get the angle to put the stone on the actual edge on the blades I have. I did the Sharpie marker trick to double check and sure enough, the contact point was way back at the beginning edge of the bevel, not down toward the edge.

My blades had a spine (without tape) of about .040" and about .010 added per layer of tape.

dilly-b · May 22, 2011

Try thicker tape - :001_smile

I got a really nice shiny bevel at the very edge on the 3 blades I tried, PAL, Treet, GEM SS... The very edge was the only contact point on all three blades. might be that you need to increase your finger pressure towards the edge, and not the spine. The 'new' bevels really look good under the scope, even at 100x. Really wonderful, smooth, comfortable shave today with GEM SS.

Klopstick said:
I just did a test on some Gem Stainless and some modern carbon blades from Walgreens. What is the spine thickness on yours? A single, and even double layer of tape isn't nearly enough to get the angle to put the stone on the actual edge on the blades I have. I did the Sharpie marker trick to double check and sure enough, the contact point was way back at the beginning edge of the bevel, not down toward the edge.

My blades had a spine (without tape) of about .040" and about .010 added per layer of tape.

dilly-b · May 22, 2011

We're in uncharted waters here. I'd say just give it a few laps if it starts to tug and see what happens!

ShavinBacon said:
Having never tried straights, how often do you have to hone the blades? Stupid question I know but do you hone them once in the beginning or after every shave? My curiousity is peaked to try this.

Search

Honing SE Blades - WIN!

dilly-b

Proinsias

dilly-b

dilly-b

Alucard73

dilly-b

Alucard73

Doodi1

filedog

drews50

ShavelockFoams

dilly-b

dilly-b

dilly-b

dilly-b

ShavinBacon

Wil Dorenbos

Klopstick

dilly-b

dilly-b

Similar threads