Blind edge test! Ugly razors, fine finishes.

[JohnEzra]

a couple things here and there lately causing me to scratch my head. One of them was about fine synthetics.

Someone said never more than 10 on a gokumyo 30k and then elsewhere someone else said no limit for most part.

So after reading this yesterday, and seeing the same contradictions posted more than once around here, I ended up doing a little experiment while honing yesterday. I had picked up a few cheap vintage razors to use for honing practice that were marketed as "shave ready"...ha. The first razor that i inspected had a lot of microchips and deep scratches from lower grit stones at the edge that needed to be removed.

Normally I would have dropped down to the Naniwa Pro 3K or even the 1K to make quick work of these imperfections, but I decided to see if there was such a thing as too many laps on the finer stones, and remove the damage on my Naniwa 8K Super Stone instead. It took about 1000 laps to remove enough metal to get down to virgin steel and a nice clean edge, but there was no edge degradation caused by too many laps. I stopped and checked things every 100 laps under the microscope to check how the edge was progressing.

I ended up finishing the razor on a Naniwa 12K, and shaved with it last night. It was a pleasant shave, and felt no different than any of my other razors finished with a standard Naniwa 1K, 3K, 5K, 8K, 12K progression.

If I get a chance today I am going to do a standard 1K-12K progression, then move on to the Gokyumo 20K and to 1000 laps on there, stopping to take pictures under the microscope every 50 laps for the first 200 laps, and every 100 laps from there on out to really put this myth to bed.

Just to clarify I am not suggesting that more laps is better, as I believe you can max out a stone's capability in far fewer than 1000 laps, I just don't believe that with good techniques more laps cause any real issues.

 

[SliceOfLife]

So, USPS is a living nightmare right now. It's had its misses all year 5-10% of packages getting stuck for weeks on end. Right now ~100% are getting stuck for weeks on end. We've had mail delivered to our house twice in the past two weeks and it was a handful of letters. My wife gets the notifications of what's being delivered, and it flat out hasn't been getting delivered. They scan it as being delivered and just leave it in the office/truck/somewhere. I've got roughly 20 packages that are just sitting in various post offices right now, virtually all Priority 2-3 day... some 3+ weeks now with little or no movement.

Soooo... this may be on hold until after the holidays. I know Global is planning on sending a few more mysteries back to me to test... but I'll be surprised if they make it here before the new year regardless of when he is able to send them... but once USPS gets through the backlog and is actually moving again, I'll get the finalists out to Tanuki ASAP (probably mid-Jan at this point).


So from the mysteries I have tested so far and some follow up research I've done, I've learned a few things:

1. Jaspers can be very good, but the very good ones are not at all guaranteed. I bought 15 or so and two of them are actually stones I'd see myself willing to use.

2. Oil on coticules definitely worth trying. It seems that it bumps up the sharpness on avg and slightly above avg coticules nicely. On my finest ones it changes the edge a little, but it's difficult to say which is better. I think I'm still leaning towards water on my "ultra-fine" coticules... but everything below that I think I do prefer oil finishes.

3. Spyderco UF capable of more than I remember ever getting out of it. I've got one coming my way along with some diamond 1 mu film to smooth the hell out of it on for testing.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Global, Remind me. How'd you use the spyderco?

You said, broken in 1200 Atoma lapped if I remember right, correct? Did you use it dry, wet, glycerin, or oil?

 

[global_dev]

Global, Remind me. How'd you use the spyderco?

You said, broken in 1200 Atoma lapped if I remember right, correct? Did you use it dry, wet, glycerin, or oil?

lapped with the 1200, honed on it with water.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Got my Spyderco in. It was used, so pretty broken in, but I've been lapping it on and off on 1 micron diamond film before every use. It's quite smooth, but I can't say 100% it's fully 1 micron lapped yet... getting there... slowly.

It removes a lot from the bevel and very little from the edge... suggesting It's a good polishing stone, not a great sharpening stone... which I always run into trouble with on razors... but I'll keep working on it.


Had two shaves off it so far, and both were pretty good, but not great. Strikes me as about what I remember from these stones in the past. Not worth keeping it over a Thuri or coticule... maybe a hair shy of what I expect shave-wise from a 10k+ synth. Good, nudging towards great closeness and Fair to Good comfort.

Edge looks kind of rough for the expected level of finish, but again, that's about what I remember seeing on these stones. Picture is two places on the edge chosen randomly.

I'll keep working on it.

 

[LJS]

suggesting It's a good polishing stone, not a great sharpening stone...

This is still where I am with them. That along with the fact that I don’t like the feel of honing on it. I finished one side well enough you no longer see the manufacturing swirls and felt it was only polishing/burnishing. I used the factory side and felt it was a little grabby in spots. I think even if I learned to get a good edge off of it I wouldn’t use it much due to the feel of using it.

 

[SliceOfLife]

So, like I said, after every use I've been lapping the Spyderco stone some more on 1micron diamonds film. This shave finally got me to where I'd call it a really good shave... maybe a hair below a Thuri-level shave in comfort but equal in sharpness. Impressive for an 8x2" you can get for ~$62 (albeit with hours of work in lapping it smoother than it arrives).

Drawback is of course that it is painfully slow (whereas Thuri's are quite fast for their refinement level), and as mentioned... not at all easy to get to the surface quality that gives these results.

Still, definitely getting better shaves off it with this degree of break-in than I was getting when I hadn't done the same degree of surface prep... and once done it's a pretty good touch up stone. And it doesn't COST much to lap it smooth. While the film I've been using shows a lot of wear, it's still the first (8" diameter) film I started lapping the stone with on arrival... so a few bucks was all the cost in the surface refinement, despite the time investment being so significant. And given Jon's results were off a 1200 Atoma: a 3 micron, 5 micron or 9 micron film could probably be used instead of 1 micron to reduce the time needed.

You can also trade your time for some more savings by getting the Fine (~$50 instead of ~$62) which is the same stone but even coarser finish on arrival.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Razors/Edges from Global are back!

Todays shave (3 days no shave, so should be a top notch shave... nice beard length).

Manganese was the lucky razor.

Strop and HHT = ok, but not great HHT... a bit toothy/grabby in the HHT, which in my experience means a very hard finisher... like a hard/fine Jnat or UF.

Shave on the other hand was great. Again with that noise (seems your edges consistently have thinner regions behind the edge than mine which is what I suspect makes this noise... probably due to my use of DMT's for prefinish honing vs stones that can generate slurry... not a bad thing, but this noise off edges which I had honed usually indicates a problem with the finisher (Norton Razor Hone gives me noisy edges like this), so it's something I notice when I start shaving. That said, there were no problems. No unusual harshness and the edge didn't seem to degrade AT ALL during the shave (which is my primary concern when I get a noisy edge).

Closeness top notch and comfort just the teeniest tiniest bit below it. Really a great shave.

I've got no good guess at this one. Maybe the UF edge I requested again? In which case I think you're still getting a little bit better results off the UF than I am (though it's not a night and day difference), especially with respect to comfort. I'd say I expect it's a hard stone. Beyond that I can't tell much.


I'll probably spend a week or so with Globals edges then get the final round in the mail to Tanuki.

Edit:
Realizing I forgot to head2head two razors. I'll do first two as solo shaves, use my memory to judge and then switch back to head2head for the next matchup and the winner vs winner and loser vs loser matchup. So 4 more shaves.

 

[SliceOfLife]

So Good news... Nothing was disturbed by my mistake. There's not any question between the Manganese and todays razor.

Today was the thinned out Gold Dollar 66. #4.


Stropped and HHT and the HHT immediately lacked the toothiness it caught on the manganese, but was muuuuuuuuuuch duller. Barely able to pass HHT. Shave bore this out as well. Was a very big step down in both closeness and comfort from yesterday. Felt like a natural stone to me... but not a particularly fine one. Reminds me a bit of a CNAT. Foundstone or Mystery Slate perhaps?


Tomorrow will be the two 1996's heads up. Winner will face off vs the Manganese.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Today was the ground down 1996 (#3) vs the stock 1996 (#5).

HHT suggested similar sharpness, below the Manganese, but closer to it than to the 66. #3 showed a bit of tooth in the HHT, #5 didn't.

In the first pass, both edges clearly had a bit of tooth, and were fairly similar in sharpness... but #5 took the edge in both sharpness and comfort in all passes.


At this point, I'm pretty confident the ranking will be as follows, but I'm stilll going to do the winners and losers matchup

Manganese > #5(Stock 1996) > #3(Thinned 1996) > #4(Thinned 66)


As an aside, before I clicked submit on this review I scoped both the 1996's and the pics of the edges are relevant. Both show pretty notable edge damage. The Thinned 1996 has a very big crumple in the edge, the Stock 1996 has some less significant damage, but much more of it.

 

[SliceOfLife]

And for comparison, Here's the Thinned 66 (#4), showing what may be some very minor edge crumble, and the Manganese which doesn't seem to show any.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Todays shave confirmed almost the second the razors touched my face what was predicted.

Manganese edge significantly better than #5 edge in all respects, and I'm confident my rankings are set.

@global_dev, feel free to reveal whenever you like.


1. Manganese (far and away the best)
2. #5 (1996 stock grind angle, this was #2 previously, but came to me in the #5 sleeve)
3. #3 (1996 thinned spine)
4. #4 (66 thinned spine)

 

[global_dev]

Todays shave confirmed almost the second the razors touched my face what was predicted.

Manganese edge significantly better than #5 edge in all respects, and I'm confident my rankings are set.

@global_dev, feel free to reveal whenever you like.


1. Manganese (far and away the best)
2. #5 (1996 stock grind angle, this was #2 previously, but came to me in the #5 sleeve)
3. #3 (1996 thinned spine)
4. #4 (66 thinned spine)

all finished on the UF!

 

[SliceOfLife]

Well, that makes me feel better about not getting the same results as you on it. May just need to find the right razor.

Also may say something about Gold Dollars not being the ideal razors for use with the UF. The Manganese was a great shave... the other three... I'd probably not want another shave off of.


I'll get the finalists honed up and try to ship them to Tanuki by early next week.

 

[stone and strop]

Yep, even synthetics are at the mercy of different razors.
This is why a test razor that plays well with all steels is so rare.
When and if you find one, it will tell you what a stone is capable of. Not necessarily will it work on all razors but its not the stone!
This leads to the problem of many thinking its the stone and keep looking for something else when they should just be trying different razors, or just find a test razor.

 

[SliceOfLife]

I will say the Yellow Lakes are the pinnacle I've found of that. They can get a fantastic edge out of like 5-10% of my razors, but are quite mediocre with the others. It's really remarkable the difference. But this is definitely looking like UF's are in the same camp. I've had a Jnat or two that also gave me that impression.

Thuri's, PDSO, good (but not ultra-hard) coti's? Never found a razor they don't like. And even Ultra-hard coti's get along with 95%+ of razors.


Edges are set for the finale. Just want to scope them and make sure I didn't miss any pitting or damage before I oil, pack and ship.

 

[stone and strop]

Thuri's, PDSO, good (but not ultra-hard) coti's? Never found a razor they don't like. And even Ultra-hard coti's get along with 95%+ of razors.

I have found some do not like Thuri's or coticules - just like everything else IMO.
I would say Jnats are the most tolerant of different razors but there are still some that don't like them.
Having that magic razor makes testing consistent and accurate.

 

[Tanuki]

While I'm still boycotting reading this thread to keep my mind clear of bias, I have been glued to the USPS tracking for the Final 4+2.

After delivery did not materialize to meet the Wednesday promise, the tracking has reverted to In-Transit with no predicted delivery. Hmmm...

 

[SliceOfLife]

Welcome to today's USPS. Could be there tomorrow could be there a month from now. Not to go off on a political tangent but good Lord I Hope they fire the usps board.

 

[Tanuki]

Right now it says delivery today, within a two hour window. I think the algorithm is feeling guilty about the misinformation/delay. Testing tomorrow! Maybe.