Braking news. Read all about it. Finally after 175 years, a German that can read this "important" old text and speak English has finally been found
Finally i can sleep well. One small step for man, one giant leap in the shaving community
View attachment 100480
Polytechnische Mittheilungen, Volum 3, Page 28 and 29
G) Straight Razors
The blade of the aforementioned has a uniqueness, which sets it apart from all other types of knives: the full hollow ground, from spine to cutting edge and a thickness of material close to the cutting edge close to nonexistent when compared to the much thicker spine. These characteristics have their good reasons. As it is generally known, to prepare a straight razor for use, after it has been as close as possible completed on the the rotating sharpening stone/wheel, it has to be honed on a flat hand stone; this means it has to be laid flat on the (with oil coated) stone in the specific manner of letting the spine and bevel touch the stone simultaneously, and under very mild pressure, against the cutting edge, - to avoid burr formation - guide the razor on both sides as long as it is necessary. Doing this forms 2 thin (usually 0.2 to max 0.6mm broad) bevels, when those two become one the cutting angle of the razor is set. The hollow nature of the sides, even though it does not contribute to the cutting angle of the razor, is of great importance for this task: it causes the knife to be in contact with the stone on only two places, so it is very easy to be held in this position, some could say it almost holds itself in position, because there are no other points of contact to be found. The most useful result of this is the fact, that the aforementioned bevels will be even and smooth; where as in the sharpening process of a razor with non hollow ground sides and weaker/skinnier spine, an artificial inclination against the stones surface has to be introduced, which is not as reliable, and with the resulting unstableness on the one hand side comes an uncertain cutting angle or on the other hand side, even worse, a slight convex in the bevels, which greatly depletes the needed fineness of the cutting edge.
If it was the goal to create a razor with an even (non hollow) side and a spine, so thick, that it would touch the stone while honing in the same manner as mentioned above, the blade would be needed to be honed evenly across the whole side, which would not only make the business of sharpening razors immensely difficult and take longer but also the guidance of the razor by hand, as the worker, unbeknownst, could lift the spine or the bevel of the razor a tiny bit off the stone.
The hollowness has another use case: it is the reason, why the bevel inwards has an even thickness across a long distance which lets the razor keep a smooth edge with a small bevel/cutting edge, which makes the process of honing easier and faster.
The stone used for honing has to be hard, with very dense structure and even grit, because without these characteristics there is no way a smooth cutting edge can be produced. Some use 2 or 3 stones with gradual fineness in grit; it can be said, without a doubt/certainly that by only using one single very fine stone - maybe with a bit/significant more time needed - the goal of a smooth edge can be reached, this might even be better for the bevel/cutting edge, as the harsh grit marks from the lower grit stones do not need to be polished out. Others go even one step further and change the surface of the stones used in their gradual sharpening stone set. A well-versed man in this matter (honing razors) told me of this for him very advantageous practice: The first, sharpest/best biting/roughest stone (which can be an oil or water stone) shall be made to a convex surface. The second stone in the arsenal, which is a levantinian oilstone that word does not really exist anymore/is a negatively connoted word.. so it should better be called stone from the orient or an arabic one from syria/lebanon/jordan etc. shall be prepared in the same way, even though with less convexness; only the third (last) stone shall be flat, and for this one a fine hard clay slate stone (blue sharpening stone) shall be chosen, here the honing shall always be done with water only. This method is rational; with the convexness of the first two stones the steel near the bevel will be thinned down successively, which only leads to a superbly thin bevel with the last stone, who only needs very little work to do so: I have my doubts, as this method of honing on convex stones requires more experience than even the undoubtful experience needing process of honing on flat stones. As a matter of fact this process, as far as I know, is only used by knifemakers, knivegrinders and barbers. so basically he tells us, that we normal dudes do not know enough/have not had the years of training required to hone on convex stones
The razor, by far, does not hold an edge needed for use after the sole usage of stones; the sweeping/stroking/stropping god damn, there is no really good English word for that - all of us agree on stropping, so most likely stropping is the best translation has to happen, which polishes the cutting edge, meaning it removes the last bits of roughness left behind by the stones.
This work, as it is well known, is done by using the so called pull-off strop or hanging - here again there is no English translation for this other than leather strop strop, which is made from a veal or Russian leather strip, whose fleshside leather has 2 sides is used and beforehand impregnated with a mixture of fine honing or polishing powders and fat. For these compounds/powders polishing red (kolkothar) is used for one side and black lead/graphite I simply do not know which it was, although I'm betting on graphite, this compounds can still be bought today btw. Herold makes them, this typical red and black compound for the other strop side.
Finally i can sleep well. One small step for man, one giant leap in the shaving community
View attachment 100480
Polytechnische Mittheilungen, Volum 3, Page 28 and 29
G) Straight Razors
The blade of the aforementioned has a uniqueness, which sets it apart from all other types of knives: the full hollow ground, from spine to cutting edge and a thickness of material close to the cutting edge close to nonexistent when compared to the much thicker spine. These characteristics have their good reasons. As it is generally known, to prepare a straight razor for use, after it has been as close as possible completed on the the rotating sharpening stone/wheel, it has to be honed on a flat hand stone; this means it has to be laid flat on the (with oil coated) stone in the specific manner of letting the spine and bevel touch the stone simultaneously, and under very mild pressure, against the cutting edge, - to avoid burr formation - guide the razor on both sides as long as it is necessary. Doing this forms 2 thin (usually 0.2 to max 0.6mm broad) bevels, when those two become one the cutting angle of the razor is set. The hollow nature of the sides, even though it does not contribute to the cutting angle of the razor, is of great importance for this task: it causes the knife to be in contact with the stone on only two places, so it is very easy to be held in this position, some could say it almost holds itself in position, because there are no other points of contact to be found. The most useful result of this is the fact, that the aforementioned bevels will be even and smooth; where as in the sharpening process of a razor with non hollow ground sides and weaker/skinnier spine, an artificial inclination against the stones surface has to be introduced, which is not as reliable, and with the resulting unstableness on the one hand side comes an uncertain cutting angle or on the other hand side, even worse, a slight convex in the bevels, which greatly depletes the needed fineness of the cutting edge.
If it was the goal to create a razor with an even (non hollow) side and a spine, so thick, that it would touch the stone while honing in the same manner as mentioned above, the blade would be needed to be honed evenly across the whole side, which would not only make the business of sharpening razors immensely difficult and take longer but also the guidance of the razor by hand, as the worker, unbeknownst, could lift the spine or the bevel of the razor a tiny bit off the stone.
The hollowness has another use case: it is the reason, why the bevel inwards has an even thickness across a long distance which lets the razor keep a smooth edge with a small bevel/cutting edge, which makes the process of honing easier and faster.
The stone used for honing has to be hard, with very dense structure and even grit, because without these characteristics there is no way a smooth cutting edge can be produced. Some use 2 or 3 stones with gradual fineness in grit; it can be said, without a doubt/certainly that by only using one single very fine stone - maybe with a bit/significant more time needed - the goal of a smooth edge can be reached, this might even be better for the bevel/cutting edge, as the harsh grit marks from the lower grit stones do not need to be polished out. Others go even one step further and change the surface of the stones used in their gradual sharpening stone set. A well-versed man in this matter (honing razors) told me of this for him very advantageous practice: The first, sharpest/best biting/roughest stone (which can be an oil or water stone) shall be made to a convex surface. The second stone in the arsenal, which is a levantinian oilstone that word does not really exist anymore/is a negatively connoted word.. so it should better be called stone from the orient or an arabic one from syria/lebanon/jordan etc. shall be prepared in the same way, even though with less convexness; only the third (last) stone shall be flat, and for this one a fine hard clay slate stone (blue sharpening stone) shall be chosen, here the honing shall always be done with water only. This method is rational; with the convexness of the first two stones the steel near the bevel will be thinned down successively, which only leads to a superbly thin bevel with the last stone, who only needs very little work to do so: I have my doubts, as this method of honing on convex stones requires more experience than even the undoubtful experience needing process of honing on flat stones. As a matter of fact this process, as far as I know, is only used by knifemakers, knivegrinders and barbers. so basically he tells us, that we normal dudes do not know enough/have not had the years of training required to hone on convex stones
The razor, by far, does not hold an edge needed for use after the sole usage of stones; the sweeping/stroking/stropping god damn, there is no really good English word for that - all of us agree on stropping, so most likely stropping is the best translation has to happen, which polishes the cutting edge, meaning it removes the last bits of roughness left behind by the stones.
This work, as it is well known, is done by using the so called pull-off strop or hanging - here again there is no English translation for this other than leather strop strop, which is made from a veal or Russian leather strip, whose fleshside leather has 2 sides is used and beforehand impregnated with a mixture of fine honing or polishing powders and fat. For these compounds/powders polishing red (kolkothar) is used for one side and black lead/graphite I simply do not know which it was, although I'm betting on graphite, this compounds can still be bought today btw. Herold makes them, this typical red and black compound for the other strop side.
