"Variation in the effective angle." That's what my brain wasn't processing. The subsequent stones restore the proper angle to the bevel.

I was avoiding any form of skew, since that would also widen the bevel, wouldn't it? I can see how a person could use a skew motion to move the point of contact between the convex stone and razor's bevel.

I wrote that after I started a multi page thread about convex honing without understanding exactly what it did to the razor's edge, and then got put on full blast with two YouTube videos addressing my lack of understanding.

I tend to get very articulate and wordy when I've been called an idiot. Especially when that criticism is accurate and well-deserved.

...and then I had to defend my new assumptions from a very experienced honer, and got my butt handed to me again.

Now I'm at the point where I'm actually putting the theory to practical use. I still don't view convex honing as a complete replacement for flat honing, but as an additional useful tool in one's overall honing skill set. After all, you cannot hone a wedge grind razor using this method.

To put this into context, flat honers kind of view convex honing as the equivalent of a person deliberately dishing their hones so they can hone wedge grind razors, instead of using tape on the spine of the razor instead. To be fair, doing that would raise eyebrows among convex honers as well.

Huh. Okay. That makes sense.

That's the kind of attitude that made America back-to-back World War champions. An oft repeated phrase around here, "It's your shave, enjoy it your way."

Shave #9

Actually I think that's @swarden43's saying.

Shave #10

and another edge shot.

I think this was a worthwhile experiment. I noticed a decrease in the feel of keenness around shave #5, but no other negatives. I suspect that is the reason many convex honers end up refreshing the edge early, to get that keen feeling back.

Jarrod said that about the time he turned 40, the edges he was getting just weren't 'cutting' it anymore, and he needed the extra bump in keenness offered by convex honing to deal with his skin aging and becoming more fragile and his stubble getting tougher to cut as it turned grey.

While I personally have noticed that I appreciate more aggressive razors these days, as my hair does the same, I get equally good shaves from flat and convex honed razors. The biggest difference being that I struggle to get a good edge on a razor I've honed myself on flat rocks. That is purely a 'lack of skill' issue on my part. The geometry advantage offered by convex hones seems to make up for my lack of honing skill.

If you go back through this thread, you will see edges posted by John and Steve that make my edges look downright awful. Some of that is because they probably have better microscopes than I do. Most of it is just that they are far better honers than I will ever be.

Speaking of microscopes, when I took that last edge shot, I accidentally knocked the scope over right into the edge.

That blade is going to need a full re-hone before I shave with it again.
However I decided to go ahead and do a couple hundred laps on the surgical black Arkansas, just to see what the edge would look like if I just been able to do a refresh. I didn't see much change to the edge, so I did another hundred laps on my fine flat coticule. This didn't remove the two dings in the edge left by the scope, but it did noticably polish the bottom quarter of the bevel. This was yet another experiment, as I used the coticule dry, having read that honing on a dry coticule, and rubbing the coticule afterwards with a clean cloth can leave a finer finish on the edge than water, oil, or slurry, as the embedded metal particles leave the surface of the stone smoother. I don't know about that, but figured it would be an interesting scope shot nonetheless.

This definitely puts paid to the assumption that stropping, or even honing would remove the concavity of the bevel fairly quickly.

I'm not sure how many more myths about convex honing remain to be debunked, except perhaps long term honing results, and from what I've seen, and from what John has already said, the apex of the edge resets itself to the correct angle during honing, no matter the width, depth, or shallowness of the bevel's concavity.

Funny how a little experience changes things. I now feel more qualified to answer these questions, based both on more research and now, some limited practical experience. I still don't claim to be anything like an expert on the topic.

Absolutely. 100%, no doubt about that in the slightest.

Better? Not necessarily. Different, yes. I also think concave bevels are achievable using flat hones and slurry, though that takes considerable skill and (probably) takes longer on flat stones, and doesn't extend as far from the apex as a convex hone produces.

This is speculation, but I believe it was because barber manuals were focused on quick edge maintenance, rather than being a comprehensive guide to everything about straight razors. Expecting a barber to maintain a convex hone's shape on top of everything else a barber does would be asking rather a lot from the barber.

Also, barbers typically used synthetic barber hones, those are fairly coarse, but blazing fast. 6-8 strokes to refresh an edge. With that kind of speed, they didn't need anything else. Sharpening speed was king back then, not fineness.

As you've pointed out numerous times, a convex edge lasts longer. A razor can have both a concave bevel and a convex edge. From what I've seen and felt, the upper 2/3 of the bevel can be concave, while the lower 1/3 is either flat, or becomes slightly convex over time. I don't see the two as being mutually exclusive of each other.

The blades are already thinner than anything any human honer can possibly hope to achieve with a straight razor. Concaving the bevel would be counter productive at that point.

From what I've read and seen lately, Dovo has been spending more time getting rid of the 'dovo frown.' the result is 6/8 razors being closer to 5/8, and of course prices have gone up, but that's true of everything these days.

Why can't it be both? It's both easy and hard. Except for the hone shaping part. That's just plain hard work.

I think it's much easier for a beginner to get a shave-ready edge on convex hones than flat hones. It's still no quick substitute for time spent learning the fundamentals of honing. If the bevel isn't set, you won't get a good edge, no matter what shape your rock is, flat or not.

A good analogy might be chess. A person can learn the basics of chess in an afternoon, unless they are genuinely stupid. True mastery of chess, however, takes much longer, unless someone is some sort of child prodigy. I'm not that someone.

Unless you're me, and the more I hone, the more I realize I kinda really suck at it, but at least my crappy looking edges shave me well, and at the end of the day, that's all I'm looking for.

I still view convex honing as a supplement to flat honing, or perhaps complimentary to flat honing, not a replacement of it. It's the equivalent of a really good DLC (downloadable content) pack for a video game, not the game itself.

It does speed up the honing process, which in turn, means less overall wear on the razor's spine. I think it really ought to be the first choice for honing razors, provided the razor shape allows for it (no wedge grinds allowed here) and the edge is capable of taking and holding a concave bevel. Not all razors can.

It can also turn a slow stone into a faster one, and slower stones like BBW and Arkansas do benefit from being convex shaped.

Taped spines feel horrible on convex hones. They work, but feel super draggy, unlike on flat hones where there isn't a huge difference in feel between a taped and an untaped spine.

Both types of honing each have their pros and cons, and which to pick largely depends on the razor being honed. I don't ever foresee convex honing becoming hugely popular unless convex shaped diamond or CBN stones become a thing, or concave diamond or CBN plates become widely available. I suppose it could happen, but it would take both a huge resurgence of straight razor popularity, and a wide adoption of convex honing. I could see maybe one of those happening, but both? Highly unlikely.

Razors like the Tedalus Essence are going to be the future of straight razor shaving, not actual straight razors. I wouldn't be at all surprised if more than one razor manufacturer hasn't taken a good long hard look at the Essence and is already working on similar designs.

I just went back and re-read my previous answers to these same questions, pre-convex honing experience, and I much prefer these answers instead.

If you can keep it where you can shave with it, that's all that matters, not the road you use to get there.

#firstworldproblems.

Not me. It was a money and time sink. But I learned a lot and have some very nice stones and razors to show for it, and some extra honing skills and techniques to call on.

You can't gatekeep a hobby and still expect it to thrive. I see similar responses on other forums with people who pooh-pooh corncob pipes and over-the-counter pipe tobacco blends. We all start somewhere.

...and it isn't a new gimmick. It's an old technique recently brought back, but shaping and maintaining the stones is not an easy task, and not to everyone's taste.