New Honer Questions

[H Brad Boonshaft]

So, in both of the examples above, the razors needed correction. Repair work is not touch up or regular honing. The razor needs to be repaired so it can be honed normally.

Yes, if the width of the blade has been reduced considerably or if the spine was ground too thick, as in the case with most Chinese razors, (Gold Dollar et all) then the spine needs to be ground thinner to get to a proper bevel angle. Again, this is repair work. In some cases, it is better to tape the bevel and grind the spine, those are rare.

But we are talking about a new honer learning to hone. It is very common for new honers to hone a razor excessively on aggressive low grit stones, for hours or even days. There are countless posts with photos, of new honers who have needlessly ground/trashed spines grinding them while trying to learn to hone. Every one of those razors could have been saved with a piece of tape.

Google (My Second Try at Honing), it is a post of a new honer, his second attempt at honing a razor, an eBay beater, from bevel set to pristine 12k bevel super shaver, with good micrographs of his edges. It took the honer with daily instruction and advise 51 posts, over 20 days just to fully set the bevel.

What do you think the spine would have looked like, had he not taped it. His experience is likely, very normal for a new honer.

Most razor can have their bevels set fully in about 40-80 laps on a 1k stone by an experienced honer. Once a razor is properly honed with the correct bevel angle it need only be touched up on an 8k and or a finish stone, film or paste. Unless damaged, most of my personal razors will never see a 1k again, as long as I own them, and the geometry will not change enough to make a difference in the shave.

This is not the case for new honers. And that is what I am talking about. Telling a new honer not use tape to protect the spine, is setting him up for failure.

Once you have mastered honing, then decide if you want to continue to use tape or not.

 

[JPO]

I damn near had to regrind the razor to get the edge to touch the hone

That is because you probably also needed (or did) allot of correction work. A few layers of tape would not require that much work to erase, especially on Fillarmonica.
So, was it the tape?

Took me a week to get it shaving.

A week to erase the effect of a few layers of tape on a full hollow thin grind.

All of my razors are honed with no tape for the same reason that most of JPO's are honed with tape.

?

 

[SliceOfLife]

On a finisher... doing it little by little and trying to figure out why a razor that is sharp but not sharp enough isn't seemingly improving at all without knowing you're not hitting the edge? Yeah. That takes a week. Trying to figure out if the razor is just junk, temper blown, wire edge, etc... as a relatively new honer/shaver? Yeah.

Edge had a few microchips, but no. Finisher was plenty to fix em, if I had been hitting the edge. Figuring out you AREN'T hitting the edge on a razor that SHOULD only need a touchup. That takes a week of trial and error and banging your head against a wall.

This was 15 years ago. There weren't piles of threads on taping around back then, even if I was looking for them. The idea that someone would deliberately screw up the designed method of maintenance of their tool for aesthetic reasons was foreign to me.


Tape takes a very simple tool and screws with how it's supposed to work. Not a problem if you understand the changes you're making to it and as you astutely pointed out... track them. But you then take and sell that razor to a buyer who doesn't know that change was implemented and instead expects the razor is unmodified (make no mistake, Tape is MODIFYING a razor)... that's ruins the simplicity of the tool. You can no longer touch it up in the way that every straight razor ever was designed and is expected to be able to be touched up. You have totally removed one of the fundamental design elements of a straight.


With respect to the last quote; it's meaning is that you tape everything so you don't have to keep track. I tape nothing so I don't have to keep track.

 

[JPO]

I have a few NOS razors, which I believe was intended to be micro convexed and maintained using pasted strops.
These have bevel angles of approximately 15 deg.
The steel was not able to hold that well at this bevel angle with a flat bevel.
These needed a layer of tape to hold an acceptable edge, in my opinion.

So, when we say something is designed to be maintained a certain way we also make assumptions that might be incorrect.

I have two costum razors that have a bevel angle if 13.5 deg. That will not work with any type of steel, in my opinion.
Honing it with two layers of tape was not a pleasure.
However, there was nothing objectively wrong with the design.
They were intended to be maintained using a pasted strop.
That actually worked quite well, but I wanted a different type of edge.

 

[SliceOfLife]

What brand razor?

I've got some old Frenchies with edges as fine as 11 degrees that hold up... so not lasting at 15 degrees would make me avoid a maker. Others (mostly turn of the century americans with solingen steel) @ 13-14 degrees they might hold up with some finishes but not others. 15+ degrees, can't say I've seen a vintage fail (not counting ones with blown temper).

Gold Dollar, sure, 15 degrees is pushing it... but a vintage, particular if it's got german steel? That's a surprise. Ok Maybe those "tourist set" razors... They always seemed a little cheap on the steel to me... never tried one at that angle, but I'd not be shocked.


I mean maybe full wedges going back 300+ years, the spine wasn't a guide... but since at least the advent of the frameback, I think we can pretty confidently deduce that the design element of the spine as a progressive honing guide existed.

And our course the concept of hollowing (Mid 18th century) seems more to ease the maintenance than change the behavior in shave... which implies that at least before then honing was being done flat on the stone.


Further proof of this is the hollowing of even "Wedge" razors when they started being added back into lines (Dubl Duck SatinWedge, Spike Wedge, etc)... which added significant cost and complexity to manufacturing with the only perceivable benefit for a razor DESIGNED to replicate a wedge in a shave being the ability to hone it flat easily. Basically, a wedge... without giving up the spinewear honing guide that had been added to straight razor design and generally accepted as an improvement over traditional wedges.

 

[JPO]

What brand razor?

WoolfBlades.
These blades are made with Damasteel, i.e. modern powder steel with heigh wear resistance and hardness.
The steel would probably hold even at 10 deg. However, creating a clean apex without generating a burr is quite a challenge.
As the edge gets thinner you don't have enough strength in the bevel to be able to have enough pressure to cut the steel without just creating a burr.
Tape was added until I was able to get a clean apex.
Another experienced honed had the same problem which was solved by increasing the bevel angle a few degrees.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Oh I meant the vintage ones.

I have no real experience with modern custom razors except that the steel is typically nothing like vintage razor steel... so I wouldn't have any clue how to expect them to behave. Honestly, very hard 13.5 degree razor? I'd expect tearing/tear out to become a problem more than avoiding a burr... but that's just based on my experience with knives in those crazy high hardness ranges.

I'd never assign the expectations I have of a vintage razor to anything modern and custom. Once you get into custom stuff; they could tell you it can only be honed during a full moon with holy water on a stone pulled from the Mariana Trench. They know what their steel and razor can do and how it should be maintained.


But I'd be very disappointed if a NOS vintage I bought was failing at the original 15* angle. That maker would go on my Doodie List.