Another bevel setting question

[psfred]

Try honing that razor with the blade at a 45 degree angle on the hone with the fat part of the spine off the hone-- the spine is fatter than it should be right at the tang, and it has previously been honed without that part of the spine touching the hone. That is why the heel isn't touching and the toe has so much hone wear.

That is how I handle Gold Dollars with fat spines, the key is getting the whole edge on the stone at once, doesn't matter how you have to hold the razor to have that happen. I have also used a dremel to remove the excess material from the stabilizer and tang, but that's pretty ugly and I'd not do that to a good razor.

 

[Blade_Runner37C]

Well after a few drinks and my nightly pain pills, i got enough courage to go to town on the hone. I was able (first time) to get it to shave leg hairs from one end to the other. here is my stones so far.
King 1k - didn't move on until it was shaving from front to back (heel to toe?)
King 6k - about 75 or so laps
True hard Arkansas about a 400 grit ran on it. about 100 laps
Blue Black Surgical Black Arkansas about 100 laps or so.
Feels really good, waiting on strop until tomorrow (horween heirloom like new).

i'm sending it off to a friend on here to look / inspect/ re-do if needed and give me feedback. In the future I would like to add a balsa wood pre-strop from whippeddog then move to stropping. Does anybody see any issues with this for the time being until I can raise some money down the road for better stones?

Here's what I ended up with.

 

[driftwood]

Hey Blade, hope you are having a good evening setting levels.

I think I know what you asked and I agree with all the replies so I can't really add much more. But, yes, if you had to use say rolling X strokes to set the bevel you would need to continue with those same motions throughout the progression.

Unless you get drastic and try manipulating the spine of the razor, which at this point in yoyr journey I do not recommend you'll just have to try different strokes snd such until you hit on one that works and continue with that. It's actually part of the fun of working with these old razors.

I whole heartedly agree with the poster who said it's time to get after it. Hit the hones, move some metal and see how it goes. You will make mistakes, it will take longer than you want it to, then you'll be confident that you've got it, hone it out to finish and discover you didn't have it. Your heart will break a little, you will very like start swearing (I sure did), you may even need to walk away from the hones for a bit to get a breather, but you'll come back and then you will be the posting on threads like this

When I started I didn't even have a loupe, I just had my arm hair (I didn't read about the thumbnail test until much later), when I ran out of arm hair (and I did run out of arm hair!) I'm a little ashamed to admit I used leg hair. . . . . Or my face. . . . I had many bad shaves by the way. . . .

Just start honing.

Oh one other thing, this razor you got to "practice on" it may never be a show piece, but you will always have a fondness for it in your heart as the razor that got you started in honing. Each razor after this one will teach you something. Your job as a razor honer will be to listen and learn those lessons.

Enjoy the journey my friend.

 

[driftwood]

We must have been posting at the same time! I hit post on mine and your most recent post was there already. Happy to see you just went for it!!! Excellent!

Can't tell much from the photos bit it does look like you've hit the entire length, which on an old razor is an accomplishment in itself.

May I make a suggestion? Maybe wait before sending that razor out. Not because actual hands on assessment from an experienced honer isn't a great thing, BUT, I'd maybe wait, strop it, test shave with it. If it's good and you like the shave then you csn save yourself the shipping cost. If it's a horrible shave, or worse yet a blood bath (you should stop before thst happens), you will have the opportunity to diagnose the problem. A valuable skill to have in the early part of the journey.

The fact is, you are going to run into problems with your edges from time to time. Being able to understand what likely causes those issues is important and figuring out gives you a deeper understanding of the whole process.

Maybe get the razor to a point where you can complete a reasonably comfortable shave with it, then send it out. I think the feedback you'll get on a razor thst can shave decently (but maybe not incredibly) would be more valuable. Just something to consider, but any and all direct feedback you can get will be a good thing.

Cheers.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

Why are you not using tape?

You just put a massive amount of spine wear needlessly on a nice old razor with almost no wear and have caused more geometry issues for yourself.

You are riding up on the stabilizer and adding more pressure, griding the spine at the toe and middle. You can never put that steel back on a razor.

First tape the spine to prevent any more damage to the spine and move the heel corner farther away from the stabilizer and use a more deliberate even stroke to prevent riding up on the stabilizer and tang.

It may shave at the toe, but the heel half is not fully on the stone and there is no bevel at the heel corner. The heel should be honed all the way around the heel corner.

There is a lot of deep bevel setting stria on the bevel that was not removed with the 6k.

Forget about the Arks for now. Concentrate on fully setting the bevel and removing all the deep bevel setting stria and making a nice uniform 6k stria pattern and a good 6k shaving edge.

Tape the bevel, ink the bevels and stay off the stabilizer and the tang.

Before

After

 

[rhgg2]

To me that looks pretty good for your first rodeo. You could hone a bit further round the heel but it seems perfectly usable.

Here is a good exercise that helped me a lot. Put the razor flat on the stone, stationary, holding it down with light pressure. Without moving it try to tip it forwards onto the edge by twisting your fingers. Feel how much twist it needs before it tips. Now repeat with a bit more downwards pressure, feel again how much twist you need.

Now try the same thing while carrying out a honing stroke. Move forward slowly but concentrate on the twist, slowly increasing and aiming for just the amount of twist that doesn't tip the razor. Try this with different amounts of downward pressure and be aware that light pressure is REALLY LIGHT pressure, much less than you would think could possibly be effective.

When you are honing you need to balance pressure and twist (torque). I'm not prescribing how much of each you need, but the above exercise I hope should illustrate how much room you have to play. From the pictures, I would guess that more torque and less pressure might help.

When you are more happy with the basic strokes you can learn about roll with the same approach, start with the razor flat and stationary on the stone and try tilting it to the right (lift the toe, keep the heel on the stone) and to the left (lift the heel, keep the toe on the stone). Note how this puts the part of the edge which is round the corner on the stone. It looks like you have figured this out already at the toe but it's quite useful to do a dry run with the razor stationary before trying this during a honing stroke.

For what it's worth, I've never used tape to hone a razor, because I don't care about spine wear. I honed this last week, plenty of spine wear there but it shaves like a champ

Good luck and have fun!

 

[psfred]

Your razor has a slight warp and has a slightly "wonky" grind, neither of which are big problems.

You will need to use a light "rolling X" stroke to hone it from heel to toe on the convex side, and I usually handle the concave side by running the razor off the hone, starting with the heel in contact and sliding down ( or up, depending on which side is concave) as I let the heel run off, ending up on the toe. You will need to take care that the time of contact along the edge remains pretty even, else you are likely to hone in a frown.

You are using too much pressure on the toe. What I do is hold the razor on the stone very lightly and apply some lift to the spine side with my fingers on the tang. Ideally you want the spine to touch the hone but so lightly it only guides the razor and all the (very light) pressure it applied to the edge. Imagine you are keeping the spine off the stone by the width of a hair. I can hear the sound change as I get the pressure off the spine.

I suspect this is how the razor has been honed in the past. Angle the blade so that the tang and stabilizer stay off the stone so the heel is honed as much as the rest of the edge. There is no need for the razor to be perpendicular to the direction of travel down the hone, nor is there any real need for the spine near the tang to be on the hone.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

Awsome, half-way to a wedge. Grind that puppy.

Rock on, it’s your razor!

 

[driftwood]

The only time I tape spines when I hone is if there is gold wash on the spine I'm trying to protect, I'm feeling lazy when honing a wedge. I find tape fiddley and feel like the spine should be worn in tandem with the edge. That and if I don't use tape on the majority of my razors and I have a decent handful then I don't need to remember which ones need tape. I've also come to like the symmetry between a honed bevel snd shoulder, how they mirror each other, to me there is a beauty in that.

 

[rhgg2]

Awsome, half-way to a wedge. Grind that puppy.

Rock on, it’s your razor!

View attachment 1990870

That one was already all of the way to being a wedge

 

[Blade_Runner37C]

I honestly have never been able to strop anything. Either thought I had to use pressure or just wasn’t keeping it flat, but my only strop was a cheap throw in on a set of junk Chinese whetstones on Amazon that are horrible. Within using this strop in 5 minutes I understood what it’s supposed to feel like and within 200 laps I was on autopilot just letting the strop work for me. Very successful right out of the gate.

 

[Legion]

The only time I tape spines when I hone is if there is gold wash on the spine I'm trying to protect, I'm feeling lazy when honing a wedge. I find tape fiddley and feel like the spine should be worn in tandem with the edge. That and if I don't use tape on the majority of my razors and I have a decent handful then I don't need to remember which ones need tape. I've also come to like the symmetry between a honed bevel snd shoulder, how they mirror each other, to me there is a beauty in that.

All this, 100%.

 

[alex1921]

Meh. I tape all my razors and they still work. I hate hone ware.

Depending how the razor is quenched, are we sure the spine wears at the same rate as the bevel/edge? I have read theories that the spine might be softer and wear faster in horizontally quenched razors. Just a rhetorical question though, I am still taping no matter what.

 

[bluesman 7]

The only time I tape spines when I hone is if there is gold wash on the spine I'm trying to protect, I'm feeling lazy when honing a wedge. I find tape fiddley and feel like the spine should be worn in tandem with the edge. That and if I don't use tape on the majority of my razors and I have a decent handful then I don't need to remember which ones need tape. I've also come to like the symmetry between a honed bevel snd shoulder, how they mirror each other, to me there is a beauty in that.

I agree , but I tell beginners to use tape until they can hone without wearing through it.