I'm sure these will have been talked about before in some way, but I just wanted to canvass opinion / see if someone can explain stuff to me. Feel free just to post a link if there's some obvious thread that I've missed. And I'm also going to make a few assumptions, so if they're incorrect let me know, as it'd probably invalidate the questions...
I have a hollow ground SR that was honed and had a bevel set by one of the many experts here. Why would I ever need to take it below a finishing stone? Looking at the design it appears that concurrent metal removal at the spine and edge while honing will preserve the geometry of the razor. And if we compare it to something I do know about... honing a razor is in effect identical to sharpening the ura of a single-bevel knife, something you actually want to do on a fine stone anyway. But on a 'normal' double-bevel knife you'd need to go down lower grit stones from time to time for two reasons: Firstly a knife gets blunter than a razor before you need to sharpen it - you don't sharpen or strop a knife after each vegetable. Secondly you will occasionally need to thin it behind the edge on coarse stones - effectively re-setting the bevel. Neither of these reasons appear to me to affect SRs, so will I ever need to hone one on lower grit?
The above q. also assumes that SRs are *not* differentially hardened... is that correct?
Is there any problem with not stropping? If we assume I don't yet have a strop (I don't), but do have a number of very fine finishing stones (I do), can I just use those for a few featherweight passes and not strop? I can't imagine it's going to create any kind of noticeable burr or wire edge that I'm going to need to further refine. And isn't loaded stropping basically the same as putting something on stones anyway?
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As I say - do feel free just to tell me they're stupid questions, but if you can say why they are that'd be appreciated too!
I have a hollow ground SR that was honed and had a bevel set by one of the many experts here. Why would I ever need to take it below a finishing stone? Looking at the design it appears that concurrent metal removal at the spine and edge while honing will preserve the geometry of the razor. And if we compare it to something I do know about... honing a razor is in effect identical to sharpening the ura of a single-bevel knife, something you actually want to do on a fine stone anyway. But on a 'normal' double-bevel knife you'd need to go down lower grit stones from time to time for two reasons: Firstly a knife gets blunter than a razor before you need to sharpen it - you don't sharpen or strop a knife after each vegetable. Secondly you will occasionally need to thin it behind the edge on coarse stones - effectively re-setting the bevel. Neither of these reasons appear to me to affect SRs, so will I ever need to hone one on lower grit?
The above q. also assumes that SRs are *not* differentially hardened... is that correct?
Is there any problem with not stropping? If we assume I don't yet have a strop (I don't), but do have a number of very fine finishing stones (I do), can I just use those for a few featherweight passes and not strop? I can't imagine it's going to create any kind of noticeable burr or wire edge that I'm going to need to further refine. And isn't loaded stropping basically the same as putting something on stones anyway?
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As I say - do feel free just to tell me they're stupid questions, but if you can say why they are that'd be appreciated too!
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