Member
(This post was last modified: 02-23-2016, 11:22 PM by caleb31.)
First hello to the readers of this thread.
After years of honing my own razors and over twenty years honing my own axes,butcher knives and other edged tools there are a few rules of successful sharpening that hold true across all cutting edges.
The first rule is that no amount of polishing of an edge will help your razor shave well until you have managed to remove all nicks,flat spots and brought together the complete edge from heel to toe.
What does that look like?
Well,under a low power loupe from both sides of the razor you should not have shadowed spots (likely missing steel ) nor should there be spikes (likely a wire edge or foil edge)
With the razor pointed away from you and at a light source above you and the razor look at the edge, there should not be points of light reflecting back (likely a chip or a foil edge or even a flat spot which would mean the edge has not yet met from both sides yet.
Now I know this is not an all encompassing post,however it will help you start learning how to trouble shoot your edges on your own .
Tools I recommend.
1 a large stamp pad charged with black ink. (For marking your bevel using a light stropping motion.
2 a lighted loupe in 30 to 50 power and an
Ultra violet lighted pocket microscope.in 100 to 200 power.
3 a moistened thumbnail for doing a thumbnail check whilst grinding in the bevel.
4 patience .
5 a Google or Bing browser with Internet .
Things that have helped me learn to trouble shoot issues.
Being proactive on lapping my stones.
Watching the water move along the bevel/edge and watching for breaks as I do each stroke (breaks in the undercut indicate an issue )
Developing a sense of touch both from how the razor reacts to the stone and how the stone responds to pressure from myself and the razor.
Trusting myself. 《《 a big deal that.
If you think you cannot learn to hone well you are likely correct.
Not buying into any one persons system and experimenting with multiple strokes and stones.
Learning the difference between Grinding and honing.
(Grinding is used to shape a bevel or even a spine difference or correct a frown,warp or some other issue)
Setting the bevel follows that and some say is the same thing but I disagree and see setting the bevel as mostly edge leading strokes and up to 4,000/6,000 grit everything after that is polishing for me.
Learning to use finishing pressure on each stone/ grit before each grit change,stone change.
There are many opinions out there and up to this point in time this is my system.
I hope this helps someone somewhere. Cheers.-cam-
[Image: c86ac4999b32b101e5ebd26de8e1fdbd.jpg]
Stones in the picture are a DMT8C and a Naniwa Professional series stone.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
After years of honing my own razors and over twenty years honing my own axes,butcher knives and other edged tools there are a few rules of successful sharpening that hold true across all cutting edges.
The first rule is that no amount of polishing of an edge will help your razor shave well until you have managed to remove all nicks,flat spots and brought together the complete edge from heel to toe.
What does that look like?
Well,under a low power loupe from both sides of the razor you should not have shadowed spots (likely missing steel ) nor should there be spikes (likely a wire edge or foil edge)
With the razor pointed away from you and at a light source above you and the razor look at the edge, there should not be points of light reflecting back (likely a chip or a foil edge or even a flat spot which would mean the edge has not yet met from both sides yet.
Now I know this is not an all encompassing post,however it will help you start learning how to trouble shoot your edges on your own .
Tools I recommend.
1 a large stamp pad charged with black ink. (For marking your bevel using a light stropping motion.
2 a lighted loupe in 30 to 50 power and an
Ultra violet lighted pocket microscope.in 100 to 200 power.
3 a moistened thumbnail for doing a thumbnail check whilst grinding in the bevel.
4 patience .
5 a Google or Bing browser with Internet .
Things that have helped me learn to trouble shoot issues.
Being proactive on lapping my stones.
Watching the water move along the bevel/edge and watching for breaks as I do each stroke (breaks in the undercut indicate an issue )
Developing a sense of touch both from how the razor reacts to the stone and how the stone responds to pressure from myself and the razor.
Trusting myself. 《《 a big deal that.
If you think you cannot learn to hone well you are likely correct.
Not buying into any one persons system and experimenting with multiple strokes and stones.
Learning the difference between Grinding and honing.
(Grinding is used to shape a bevel or even a spine difference or correct a frown,warp or some other issue)
Setting the bevel follows that and some say is the same thing but I disagree and see setting the bevel as mostly edge leading strokes and up to 4,000/6,000 grit everything after that is polishing for me.
Learning to use finishing pressure on each stone/ grit before each grit change,stone change.
There are many opinions out there and up to this point in time this is my system.
I hope this helps someone somewhere. Cheers.-cam-
[Image: c86ac4999b32b101e5ebd26de8e1fdbd.jpg]
Stones in the picture are a DMT8C and a Naniwa Professional series stone.
Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
