When you are working over a curved surface there will be a slight variation in the effective angle. The radius over the diagonal of the stone is larger, which moves the resultant contact point. This makes it almost impossible to create any form of burr, even if half strokes are used. You are constantly cleaning up any artifacts at the apex. You can also change the effective radius by playing with the amount of skew relative to the longitudinal axis of the stone.
all I can do is stand up and applaud you are articulate manner of speaking. I've got to get some reference books to try to decipher what you said LOL convex honing I don't even know what it is but I've seen that guy in that video before and like I say, hats off to you. some good stuff in there
"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.
No. A skew angle increases the effective wheel radius. This can be useful, especially before transitioning to a stone with a larger radius. Most of the work is done at 90 deg, so this is just something that can be done to finish the razor or to ease the transition.
some people just need more of a challenge. I am more of a, if it's not broke, don't fix it. and as long as they have been shaving for hundreds of years and continue to as of earlier today I see no need to change anything. I just go up to a 12,000 shapton. no naturals. no slurries. LOL if my face doesn't like that it'll get over it
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."
that's a good one. I read people's reviews on different places , everybody has different opinions. they were starting to sound like a bunch of crying old women. but if it's good enough to take the whiskers off good enough for me. I see no reason to re-engineer the tire.. I will remember your saying LOL
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.
you say a lot of things that make sense LOL. shave ready doesn't just mean the razor, it means your face is shave ready too LOL and this answer seems pretty much dead on. if you get used to the absolute best nothing else will suffice. that's why I've lived my life on the worst of everything LOL everything's a step up
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.
it's an interesting read but it's all over my head LOL I can keep one where I can shave with it but after that? but it does bring up some interesting stuff
I read somewhere where there is 2 billion disposable razors a year just in America. people better start getting back into straights or they're going to be living on big hills of baby diapers and disposable razors
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.
I got totally saturated with honing about 6-8 years ago and gave it up. I am just now peeking back into the community to see what the current state of the hobby is—with some thought toward getting back into it. It was amusing to read about this new honing gimmick. When I left it was the micro bevel kids who were trying to push those hard black glassy stones (I can’t remember what they were called) that they claimed were the only thing that could do it properly. Like the convex guy (the one from YouTube who is pushing convex stones) the micro bevel kids got a little fan following going for a while! I see that this thread is getting dated by now. Has this gimmick dried up yet? God I hope so. Nice to be back on this forum after so long.
Welcome back. As for Convex honing, nothing has changed. The head of the Convex Cult, is on YouTube bragging about how all the negative talk about Convex Honing is making him money. Once again, it's all about the money. Who profits?
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.
