@sbogill you've admitted you have no interest in convex honing, nor a desire to learn more. I love a good debate as much as the next guy, but you've done the equivalent of wandering into a political forum, picked a thread where people were having a reasonable discussion, and done the equivalent of screaming "Orange Man Bad!" and bad mouthed former members of the forum. Like you, I was highly skeptical of convex honing. I didn't understand it, and I didn't know what it did to a blade's edge. Unlike you, I was willing to ask questions of people who did understand it. Once I did understand the concept, I commissioned the most complete set of forms ever made and purchased a variety of stones and proceeded to shape most of them. Then I experimented, and documented my experiments here in this thread. At the end of those experiments, I'd proved to MY satisfaction that convex honing had merit, and offered a unique edge that some people favor. I also came to the conclusion that convex honing would never gain widespread acceptance unless a diamond plate manufacturer was willing to make concave plates. As I don't see that happening anytime soon, convex honing will remain a niche segment of the straight razor hobby. That doesn't mean it's useless.
Thanks for making my point for me. You say niche I said quirky and gimmicky. We’re not that far apart really.
Bad mouthed? Really? I said his honing method was quirky and gimmicky. You said he was condescending and narcissistic. What you said about him could be viewed as more negative than what I said.
Oh? You think it ought to be discouraged. I think it ought to be encouraged, but I accept that the difficulty of shaping convex hones will, for all intents and purposes, put it out of reach for any but the most committed enthusiast. It's funny really. I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a straight razor enthusiast. I can hone and shave with a straight razor, and have some really excellent strops, razors, and stones, but I mostly picked it up just to be able to say "So what, I can do it too." It was pretty much the only part of the hobby I hadn't explored yet. I still occasionally use them. I consider the Rolls Razor system to be vastly superior to straight razors and DE razors. It combines the best of both worlds, and I can have in a nice pocket friendly case a complete shaving system with three blades all honed on different stones to give me whatever particular shave I wish, in a convenient safety razor form factor, with blades dialed in exactly how I like them, and it will outlast me by centuries. Scandalous, I know. Talk about a niche hobby. I think I'm one of about three people who use a Rolls as their primary razor, across all the shaving forums. Convex honed at that. I'll concede that point. I wasn't sure if you were talking about Jarrod or Bill M.
I did the same sort of thing one time a long time ago although on a much lower level. There was a knife maker named Murray Carter who inserted himself into the razor honing sphere. He made a video of himself honing a razor using the same technique one would use to hone a high end chef knife (think edge trailing stropping strokes here). He was universally panned on the shaving forums. My take on it was that while it was not best practices for honing a razor it should work. I recreated his method at home and took a shave that tuned out being just fine. I posted about it on one of the shaving forums. My conclusion was that it was a “niche” method (to borrow your terminology) and would never be embraced in the community. Apart from trying it out I would never want to hone that way.
I really enjoy DE shaving. I shave exclusively with a DE at the moment. I suppose now that I’m getting the honing itch again I will probably start shaving with a straight razor again. I never tried a Rolls Razor before but I would like to. I would also try a DEvette if I ever got a chance.
I’m sorry that you feel that way. I think talking about shaving and honing techniques and gear selection choices is great fun. I was enjoying talking about convex honing with you. Of course I’m on the flip side of the coin from you but that doesn’t matter to me.
Cut the guard off a tech. Instant devette. If you ride the cap when you shave, you'll notice very little difference. If you ride the guard when you shave... Well, let's just say that it will teach you to ride the cap. As for the Rolls... There is no such thing as a shave ready Rolls Razor. Even the NOS sets must be honed before use, and not on the included hone. The hone is fine for maintaining a shave ready edge, but it won't create a shave ready edge.
Do you go far enough back to remember a content creator named Big John Hallock? He was a lovably quirky guy who sure did love his Rolls Razors. I don’t think he’s around anymore or even has been for years.
We actually haven't had a conversation about convex honing yet, imo. We are about to begin having one. You know that convex honers finish on flat stones, right? I've seen a master honer finish a razor with trailing strokes. On a mirror flat black Arkansas using the lightest of feather touches. If recall correctly, he said something to the effect of "a hair more pressure, and the entire process would be set back to the bevel setting stone (or at least several stones back in the progression). It was strongly implied that the degree of a person's sensitivity to pressure would be the pass/fail portion of this particular technique. Despite using "quirky" techniques, and bumpy rocks, I've yet to hear anyone call Jarrod anything less than a master honer/honemeister. I probably do go back far enough in the hobby, but my interest in Rolls Razors is recent, counted in years, rather than decades. Edit: "content creator?" I assume you mean some video personality on some sort of platform like YouTube or Tiktok. I don't typically watch shaving videos. I see enough of that in my mirror. I do occasionally watch razor reviews, which do involve shaving most of the time. Without more context, I really couldn't say.
While I have no personal opinion regarding Jarrod's character, I have purchased two straights from him and they were honed to perfection. In fact, the BEST honing anyone has ever done for me.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPRTF1DJg/ I would call this guy’s technique quirky and his rock bumpy but he seems to be getting the job done.
I avoid tiktok, Instagram, X, Facebook, and other similar sites as much as possible. If I want my thoughts to be as fleeting and insignificant as drops in a sea of voices, I post on badger & blade or Reddit, where I can at least search out old content. Those are enough of a time sink. ...like eBay.
I’ll describe it for you then. It’s a Pakistani street barber shaving a little boy’s head. He strops his razor on a tiny maybe 1” x 3” stone then strops on the wooden block the stone is mounted on then strops on his palm. After that he commences to shave the kids head. The second clip is much the same but shows him stropping up his razor on the now exposed top of a kids head before continuing. His stone looks wavy and clogged and really pitiful. He is doing an amazingly effective job given the circumstances. I guess it’s a good thing he doesn’t know how many rules of honing he is breaking or he never would get those kids shaved. LOL The same creator has maybe 100 clips of the guy doing all kinds of shaves—head shaves, face shaves, and full beard shaves.
It's a curious thing. The man with only one stone and one razor will master that single stone and razor to a degree we can only envy. It's far more enjoyable to have many stones and many razors, imo.
Imagine Bob, an avid amateur race car driver who thinks he's got the track figured out. He's spent years behind the wheel, confidently believing that speed and positioning are all it takes to shave those precious milliseconds off his lap times. "I've mastered the art of driving," he boasts to anyone who will listen, blissfully unaware of the gaping chasm of knowledge he's yet to explore. Bob's convinced that his near-perfect laps are a testament to his talent, never stopping to consider that there might be nuances he's missing. When a professional racer hops into Bob's car and effortlessly shaves seconds off his lap time, Bob's ego takes a nosedive faster than his car around a hairpin turn. Stuck in the Dunning-Kruger vortex, Bob fails to see the bigger picture. He's so focused on managing understeer and oversteer that he misses the crucial point: simply correcting these slips isn't enough. The pros understand that every corner is a delicate dance between front and rear axle grip, a nuanced symphony of braking, accelerating, and steering. But Bob? He's too busy patting himself on the back for his near-perfect laps to notice the subtleties. He's the king of oversimplification, content to perfect his simplified version of racing instead of embracing the complexity of the sport. As Bob stares bewilderingly at his data, scratching his head over where that last second disappeared to, the truth stares him in the face: he's barely scratched the surface of what it means to be a great driver. It's not about talent; it's about knowledge and nuance, things Bob will only discover once he's willing to admit he doesn't know it all. So, as Bob's journey out of the Dunning-Kruger abyss begins, he learns the hard way that greatness isn't found in near-perfect laps but in the messy, exhilarating pursuit of nuance. And with each mistake, each failed attempt to conquer the track, Bob edges closer to enlightenment, leaving his ego at the starting line as he embraces the thrilling complexity of the race ahead.
