Honing School - Honemeisters & Newbies Unite!

Are you using synthetic or natural?


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I have a progression of Naniwa synthetics and Shapton synthetics which is what I am using for the moment.

I have two Welsh stones I would like to start with in the near future, a small Jnat and some other various European naturals I picked up cheap.

At the moment I am working with the synthetics but at some point I'd like to introduce the Welsh stones with a couple of razors.

Would appreciate any advice on flattening both setups.

 

For JNAT and welsh I highly recommend atoma 1200 although some would disagree that they will require a lot more lapping time, they leave less scratches on the surface which can cause micro chipping. For synthetics I have a 320 grit works perfectly well. But I would stay away from truing “stones” in general they will cost you more money if you intend to do this more often and you will need a dmt or atoma anyway to flatten those stones.


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Thanks! This is such a minefield. I am really grateful for the expertise on these forums.

 

Interesting. I had used very minimal pressure to successfully touch up my Dovo a few weeks ago, and also successfully reset the bevel and re-hone the original PIF razor I got from @Drygulch this morning. I was really pleased with my results on those two. (Technically, I can't call the second a success until I shave with it, but it handles arm hair just fine, and the before and after under the microscope would lead me to believe it'll be markedly improved. I'll shave with it this weekend to confirm.) Anyway, even though I don't have total confidence in my touch up or honing skills after two razors, I do feel like as long as the razor has correct geometry and was properly bevel set and honed initially, I have a good shot at getting it back to shave ready without botching it. However, this working on whacked out blade geometry thing is a whole nother animal. It's actually a lot of fun when you're in learning mode and not worried about ruining some cheap steel, but still a totally different animal!

(EDIT: IF YOU FOLLOW THIS THREAD A BIT, YOU WILL FIND THAT CORRECTING BAD GEOMETRY IS A CONTROVERSIAL IDEA WHICH IS NOT UNIVERSALLY SUBSCRIBED TO. I'VE FOUND THAT EXPERIMENTING WITH IT HELPFUL IN MY LEARNING EXPERIENCE, BUT YOU MAY WANT TO READ ON A BIT BEFORE SUBSCRIBING TO WHAT I ORIGINALLY SUBSCRIBED TO AS LESSON #3.)

So, it appears that I've now documented boneheaded move #1 (which we'll call lesson #3).

Lesson 3: If you are going to try and correct bad blade geometry, tape the bevel edge with electrical tape first.

If you look at the picture below, you will see the significant hone wear on the spine at the toe side of the razor was required to get the blade and spine to lay down flat. This razor was so out of whack that I think this dramatic hone wear was necessary regardless, so that wasn't the bonehead move part. By not taping the bevel edge, though, it appears I ground down the edge of the razor significantly more than I realized. The edge wasn't totally straight and had some imperfections, so it needed a bit of grinding down, but I just put calipers on the blade and measured 7/16 on the heel side and 1/32 less than that on the toe side. I'm assuming that the GD started out reasonably close to 5/8 (or 10/16) to begin with, so it looks like I ground down the razor by 3/16 unnecessarily. For less than $10, that's pretty cheap lesson. Bottom line, I made the blade edge straight, but at the expense of blade width and also at the expense of "uniform" blade length. I'm pretty optimistic that I can still get this $5 razor into shave ready condition, but if she makes it that far, she's not gonna be the prettiest girl at the dance.

In other news. I also answered the question of "why do so many cheap vintage ebay razors have thinner blade widths and look like the heel side is wider than the toe side.

 

By the way, here's a link to the TAP AND WOBBLE TEST for anyone interested.

If I had gone one step further and watched THIS VIDEO, I could have avoided bonehead mistake #1, er I mean Lesson 3.

 

Your definitely making a lot of progress very quickly. It seems as though the spine did not wear evenly which ultimately doesn’t matter too much as your not going for the perfect shave, we’re learning. 2 ways I like to check the bevel
#1 use loupe or usb microscope and ensure all the scratches go from the cutting edge to the top of the bevel.
#2 run the razor over different parts of your thumbnail to ensure every section of the razor “grabs” you’ll definitely feel the difference if you run a kitchen knife that’s never been honed before.
#3 shave under your arm with toe heel and centre of the edge. Make sure they all cut the same way. If your struggling to cut your bevel needs work.
Always remember 1k-4K your honing 8k-30k your polishing
The reason I even bring this up is the polishing grits don’t matter as much as bevel set and a sharpened bevel. I like to consider this my foundation. The sharper your foundation gets the better the over all result is. Another thing don’t count your laps as a beginner, it will make you pull ur hair out. I tried this and could never understand why my edges were crap. Honing is all about feel, if you feel like it’s done check it make sure it is then move on. If you don’t like it keep going until you get what you want. If I didn’t count my strokes as a beginner I would have had wayyy better edges wayyyy faster. I still learned fairly quickly but I could have jumped a few steps if I had left my razors on the 8k & 16k a little longer.


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Wow. Thank you for this advice. I was already starting to feel like I could tell when there was less resistance at different levels, and it wasn't always related to lap counts. Based on what I was feeling, what you are saying makes a ton of sense to me.

Update: I just did a 1 pass test shave, comparing the recently touched up Dovo with the vintage razor that I reset and brought up through the progression today (1K all the way up to leather strop). I was shocked to find that the vintage razor I honed today shaved smoother than my Dovo. I may have dulled the Dovo enough that it needs to go back down to the 8K and back up in order to restore its edge, but I'm not going to get hasty about that yet. People had suggested I may need to do that, but I had no idea how to tell until I went through this exercise and started to get a feel for it. For anyone else asking themselves "how do I know?" I think the answer is you don't until you put metal to stone and start comparing results and getting a feel for it. Either way, it's awfully nice to go through the full progression and get good results.

As for the Dovo with bad geometry, I may put her aside while I sharpen my grandfather-in-law's razor that my father in law passed down to me. It's as dull as a butter knife, but totally flat. If I can work successfully through the progression and get it shave ready, he'd be thrilled. It might also get a better way to get a feel for the stones before going back to the heavy lifting of the GD.

Thanks again, @CastleShave, for the great feedback. Hopefully it'll be a resource for others, and folks will continue to chime in with their own Q&A as we go along.

 

I probably have the same microscope. I can copy the files on Monday for you.

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I have some thoughts on correcting geometry but I don't have the time to go through them now so u will follow up on Monday.

I will however share a few things that I found helpful my first couple of honing sessions.

1. You will hear the old guys say that setting the bevel is 98% is the process, and they are right. Try to get your razor as sharp as you can possibly get it on the bevel setter. Use the sharpie test to make sure that you are honing the entire blade all the way to the edge. Kill the edge by lightly dragging on the corner of your stone a couple of stones and then bring it back, it should only take a hand full of laps to bring the edge back. When you think you are done do 10 more laps using the lightest pressure possible focusing on keeping the blade flat in the stone.

Strop the razor and shave with it once you set the bevel. It will shave, it may not be very comfortable, but it will shave.

More to follow.

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#1 If you learn to actually hone you should never need to destroy a spine. no really, if you can't adjust the stroke to avoid spine wear you need more practice not more pressure to grind away steel

 

I hear what you are saying, but as a newb I don’t totally understand what you mean. Can you expound on that a bit? Particularly what you mean by “learn to actually hone”. I’m trying to learn to hone, and if you feel I should be doing something differently or there is a better way to approach things, I’m all ears and open to listen and learn.

 

Sure

Here is the thing the idea of wrecking the spines of the razor to "even" them up isn't new, people have been doing it for hundreds of years.. In fact, a very few of us get paid to fix that heavy hone wear that people that can't hone put on Vintage razors ..

Honing Gymnastics or the multitude of stupid sounding names of strokes that you hear are designed to hone around these issues
Rolling X, Rocking X Swoop, Half, Axe, Hatchet, Windshield Wiper, and a few more I am forgetting
I am guilty of a couple of those names from the early days of when I started, I thought I was breaking new ground, I WASN"T I was learning that honing requires the ability to adjust the stroke to match the razor because many of them are NOT geometrically correct...

ie: Honing Gymnastics
Honing is basically simple, you move the bevel down the hone evenly and equally to produce an edge. it gets difficult when the razor isn't perfect (few are) so you must learn the moves to keep that simple ripple of water either in front of or riding up on the bevel. THAT is it that is honing, but you see that takes practice and patience, this is why once the bevel has been set correctly most people can maintain that edge for years.

We sought to prove that back in 07,,, Myself, "Randydance" and Josh Earl would pick out new honers that were having trouble, and set their bevels ONLY for them,,, and then send the razor back to them, miraculously they could all "Hone" after the bevel was set
That also ended the erroneous old cry of "Overhoning" which was the common misnomer back then.

That was when I started that often misquoted saying "90% of the work in honing comes at the bevel set, another 9% comes in Sharpening and the last 1% is with the Finisher, which we all argue about the most, and spend all our money on"


If you introduce spine wear to a razor, even a GD because the razor isn't EVEN it means you are not willing to actually learn to hone around the issues, just like millions of men that did the same on all those hone-worn Vintage razors we see on eBay

It is the same thing as people that can't hone a smiling blade so they take the smile out by honing straight up and down the hone so many beautiful Vintage Sheffield's out the with the smile destroyed and the geometry askew because those men 100 years ago couldn't hone..

Simply put, if you can really hone, there should be MINIMAL wear introduced to the razor even honing without tape..

Matt and I agree quite a bit on the technical aspects of honing we disagree on this, I feel it is a lazy approach to honing.. Doesn't mean he and I ain't still friends. It means that as a person that has restored thousands of Vintage razors it makes my heart ache to see people actually embracing the idea of wrecking more razors because it is easier than learning to hone...


JMHO - They are after all your razors and you can do what you will with them

 

Very good idea for a thread. I’m following this to pick up more skills on the stones.

 

All of this is 100% accurate although for me hasn’t worked 100% of the time. I’ve had razors that just had a curve that I couldn’t get too on one side. So I had a large looking bevel on one side and an area with a minute looking bevel on the other. The rolling stroke helped hit that area a bit but the contact wasn’t there without me lifting the spine which would have changed the apex of the cutting edge in my opinion. I didn’t do it so I don’t know for sure but I didn’t want an obtuse angle if you will on my cutting edge. Even such, your absolutely right in the theory of rolling X the biggest reason why I didn’t mention this is simply because I want them to learn how walk before they run. Get the basics down as you and me both know this is a rabbit hole. Different razors, different stones, different edges, different techniques are all to come! Lol the synthetic world is like the gateway to soooo much more and so many different techniques. I’d personally love to pick your brain myself as I have watched majority of your videos and picked up little nick nacks from you myself! Great vids you should post them here for these guys to watch.


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Many of them are linked on here,

 

A 30x-60x lighted loupe is what I use and it works great to see the progression taking shape. I was told early on that the usb microscopes can make it too complicated. And they are also about $2.

 

I started to learn how to hone about a year and a half ago. And what I found to be an inexpensive way to flatten a stone was to use a small granite plate and wet/dry sandpaper I started with 220 moved up to 600 and then 1000 for all my synthetics. For the natural finishers I do the same but add in 1500 and 2000. There are many ways to do it though.

 

I have a couple of those and they are great. I also have a good quality 10x jewelers loupe which is in some ways better for a first inspection.

The reason I wanted the microscope was to take photos.

 

I haven't been able to find such high grits. Would lapping film work for the naturals?