What Straight Razor Have You Honed Lately????

After 20 strops each today, the JNAT edge felt a bit less rough than the Synth. My imagination? Maybe. Maybe not. Time will tell. I won’t check in again on this experiment for a while, but I didn’t want to just have “no difference” hang out there when there may well be differences that I can notice.

 

I bought out the 'You Dirty Rat' razor out for a ride on the new Convex Arkies. It is my least favored shaver, a 4/8 only stamped with 'Wagner' and 'Germany'. I did my first pass with it yesterday as a reminder and finished up with the Focus R21.

After killing the edge, and much work, I was not having any luck setting a bevel. Looked good to me in a 30x glass, yet it won't shave arm hair.

I mentioned before how the HHT just doesn't 'hang it' for me. I recall seeing one of Dr Matt's videos where he used tomatoes or grapes as an indicator of bevel setting. My thoughts went back to one of my tests for knife sharpening, they all slice tomatoes. Sure enough this razor won't even cut a 'mater', and other razors did easily. So then I start questioning the steel, which is really ridiculous since I shaved with this as well as honed it.

So I take a step back to what I know.... out came the Naniwa 1k. Got it to begin cutting in no time. Now that I was showing signs of tomato slicing, I make a note to myself that trying to cut the ceramic kitchen honing rod in half is not required to mute a razor's edge for bevel setting.

So I move back to the soft convarkie and continue to make the strokes I understand to be prescribed until I cut tomato uniformly across the edge. I seem to think Ballistol straight works better than an emulsion of the same with water as a cutting lube. I also notice the increasing uniform feel of my actions as I progress. I now have some confidence as I easily sever the tomato skin.

I moved to the hard side of the stone and continued to work. Not having a surefire doneness indicator, I guess. Then move to my progression on pasted balsa strops, then leather, then horsehide.

To the shave test. 2 passes proved this tool feeling better than yesterday, but I've got more progress to make finishing to get to equality with my top straight and a looooong way to get in the game with the Focus R21 3rd pass.

I learned:
How NOT to kill an edge
A method for confirming bevel set
Some of the traits of this stone
I seem to prefer cutting lube 'neat'
I can probably spend more time on finishing
I can do this

I will probably:
Refinish this razor
Find another 'expendable' training razor
Have no fear of taking on one of my regular users

I don't have enough experience to hand out recommendations for convex Arkansas stones over other options. I do know that TSS may be the only place you can buy one and the 3x8 size is limited to on hand only. I don't know that you need the larger size due to the type of cutting stroke used. He has fresh inventory of smaller sizes at reasonable prices. He is a reputable vendor and carries the Max Headroom seal of approval.

If you are in a position to play... definitely have at it!

 

A tip for tree topping:
Start very close to you skin (1/8 inch or less) and put a white piece of paper under where you are shaving. Because arm hairs are very small, they can be hard to see if you are getting them. This helped me master that test, when I originally felt like it wasn’t working.

 

A Puma Special #89 on a mystery green hone. Stone was found this weekend. Wanted to see what it had. Was given a comfortable, smooth blade

 

A cutler’s green no doubt Tim!

Playing around with two stones, a big, dense, hard, sage green asagi of unknown origin on a hand-fitted base, a stone that a friend of mine dubbed ‘the boulder’, and it pretty much is one. 205 x 70 x 40, and one of the densest jnats that I have. It’s known to make fine razor edges. Against it is a (probably) Nakayama koppa, about 140 x 80 x 18, a much softer stone but still fine and makes very smooth edges. I used the same tomo nagura on both. 208-9 was honed on the asagi, 208-7 on the Nakayama.

The results were ... hard to tell! They both shaved very well indeed, if I had to say a slight edge (pun intended) to ‘the boulder’, but it’s so close that I may be imagining something that isn’t there based on one shave.

 

New frameback in, Leon Pelleray, Paris. As usual with these oldies but goodies, no bevel at all a tiny chip, and a tiny frown. Grunt work was done on a Shapton Glass HR 500, followed by 1k, 2k, 4k, a kiita, then an asagi finisher. One thing about chips and frowns, you don’t have to worry about bevel set!. Edge tested great!

 

Chuck, is that you going over the waterfall???

 

No sir. I do paddle white water. The photos are from one of my supplier's catalogue, NRS. The highest waterfall for me was 15".

 

Scott @DaltonGang and I were chatting and Dovos came up so I decided to dig out and touch up my Bergischer Lowes. These are the old BLs, they’re 6/8 and as heavy a grind as Dovo probably ever made - they’re a little heavier than half hollow, but the spine is pretty thin and the edge is also thinly ground. Kind of reminds me of some Japanese razor grinds. They’re a little shorter too, about 67mm which makes them lighter and handle like a more thinly ground razor. Nice crisp machine cut jimps top and bottom. A bygone era for sure.

The stone is a hard something, no telling what, but it makes a smooth edge. The pattern is called ‘suminigashi’ which is the marbled custom-inked paper that you’ve seen if you’ve ever had a bar of Martin de Candre bath soap.

Shave tomorrow!

 

Stunning razors.

 

Thank you Scott!

 

Touched up a pair of between-the-wars French point (!) Bokers. Shapton 4k (not pictured) followed by botan, mejiro, and koma and a tomo nagura, all on the finisher. @Primotenore these are the ones that had a good factory edge 80 years on.

The Mikawa nagura are fun, but they’re slow compared to synth+jnat. 5 steps on 2 razors = a lot of rubbing steel on rock! But a good time was had, and they do a really good job. Silent HHT root in or out. I really think the naturals have a narrower grit distribution than synths.

 

Steve,
You posted a picture on the now, thankfully, defunct honing thread, showing a razor on the corner of a stone. Would you be so kind as to repost it here with an explanation, thus allowing questions to be asked? Thank you.

 

Will do Primo, let me get some additional images done.

 

Here are some new images. Basically you’re using the corner of a flat hone to ‘ride’ into frowns, warps, wonks, whatever. You can hone a banana-shaped razor or a large chip this way if you were so inclined. Usually if I need to do this I don’t have the razor in rotation, but it does come in handy when you need to hone a wonky razor as-is, an example is when you hone someone’s ancestral razors and the idea is not to correct the shape, just get an edge on it. I believe @gssixgun mentioned this technique in passing on SRP a few years back but it’s a tip well worth reiterating and describing. It’s free, it works, and it’s an easy technique to master. By using different strokes and different positions on the corner, you can tailor a corner to just about any edge.

The first image shows a razor on a corner of a hone, you can use circles and ellipses, back-and-forth strokes, or whatever combination suits the wonky geometry of the razor in question. The second and third images show the corner placed in different positions along the edge, and the last image shows the blade positioned further from the edge as if honing a slight frown. That’s about all there is to it, it’s harder to describe than it is to do!

One of the really great things about the honing community is that we all share our experiences and tips, use, modify, and communicate them, and help others learn and do a better job. This is a good technique to have in the ‘toolbox’.

 

One thing to add

We all chamfer our edges on the hones, so the technique @Steve56 just showed you can be adapted to almost any part of the hone..
It was actually laid out originally to explain to people that you didn't NEED to invest in thinner hones because of the myth they are easier to use for wonky razors.
You just needed to learn to use the hone in front of you, wide thin or odd shaped.


Hone On !!

 

Thank you for this Steve. Not having any "wonky" razors, this technique probably doesn't apply, correct?

 

Theo Kochs 11/16 Marcella. Near unused as found. Films and MMTT Thuringian. Going for a Daily Double with the late '30 Sheraton.

 

Correct, IMO, they should and most do hone correctly on a flat hone. This is a technique for dealing with frowns, bent razors, overground razors, etc. The ‘problem children’. It does the same thing as a narrow or domed hone as far as ‘reaching’ into a problem area and hitting every mm of edge,