Do you find increased bevel width affects shave quality?

[SavantStrike]

I need to vent, and to share an opinion. I think if the bevel is too wide on a straight, the edge isn't as comfortable to shave with. I also think I desperately need advice on how to hone a stubborn heel with a wide stone.

Today, I honed up a razor which I had previously spent about an hour to an hour and a half cleaning up. It was nice looking, and I was excited to see what kind of an edge it would take. It took a great edge, but the heel had almost NO bevel (to the point that it wasn't even visible on one side of the heel).

I don't have any narrow stones, so I did the best I could to make it work, and it seemed to take an edge, but the heel was clearly not as nice as the rest of the blade (which turned out GREAT). Even the heel took a fairly nice edge. But I wanted it to be PERFECT.

So, I do what I shouldn't have, and I break out my DMT sharpening sticks. They are about 1 inch wide, and not very stable (plastic base...). Big mistake. They are painfully slow for the task at hand, because they only have about 4 inches of usable travel, so I add extra tape to increase the angle and remove more metal. I heard advice that said using tape on dull spots helps. Maybe it does, but it made my life worse...

5 minutes later I realized how stupid I had just been. I had to do the whole razor with tape now to keep the thing consistent. But of course I had used several layers of tape because the metal would NOT come off of the heel. So, I used several layers.

I took the now tape encrusted razor to my 220 grit DMT, and I did enough passes that it looked like there was blood on the hone (it was just steel and red electrical tape pigments). I kept removing layers of tape until I hit just one layer, and then I went up through the progression again.

After I took it all the way through 8k, the razor was shave ready again, and I could even comfortably dry shave my face with it, but it didn't feel as nice as it did before. Either I'm being hyper sensitive, or the wider bevel is not as good. Either way, I'm done for today. I'll go back and give it the C12k treatment tomorrow, and then give it a test shave to see if it's still good.

 

[Fnord5]

Give it a couple of days.......
Don't hone while frustrated, or you get too agressive, and either make more work for yourself, or end up with a nasty cut on your fingers (my problem when frustrated)

 

[kicker245]

Do you mean bevel width or bevel angle? I definitely agree that too big a bevel angle results in an uncomfortable shave.

 

[SavantStrike]

Do you mean bevel width or bevel angle? I definitely agree that too big a bevel angle results in an uncomfortable shave.

Width. It might be in my head, but I think I was too frustrated to think straight at that point.

Give it a couple of days.......
Don't hone while frustrated, or you get too agressive, and either make more work for yourself, or end up with a nasty cut on your fingers (my problem when frustrated)

There is great wisdom to this. I cut myself honing today (for the first time ever), and I didn't know it until an hour later I was so frustrated during this fiasco. I think my short attention span may not be so good for a blade like this .

 

[gugi]

i don't understand why is the bevel wider.
taping the spine increases the bevel angle, so the bevel is narrower (there may be a leftover secondary bevel from when there was no tape)
if you ended up with one layer of tape the angle difference is about 0.5-1 degrees and any left over secondary bevel would be very small.

the only way you can have wider bevel is if you used pressure and flexed the blade, that would be secondary bevel too so it doesn't matter much if you eventually used no pressure.

i suspect the problem is that you used very coarse hones which may not be even well broken in and have microchips on the edge.

 

[SavantStrike]

i don't understand why is the bevel wider.
taping the spine increases the bevel angle, so the bevel is narrower (there may be a leftover secondary bevel from when there was no tape)
if you ended up with one layer of tape the angle difference is about 0.5-1 degrees and any left over secondary bevel would be very small.

the only way you can have wider bevel is if you used pressure and flexed the blade, that would be secondary bevel too so it doesn't matter much if you eventually used no pressure.

i suspect the problem is that you used very coarse hones which may not be even well broken in and have microchips on the edge.

There may have been a fair bit of this pressure of which you speak. I was pretty frustrated after using the portable DMT sticks on the blade and seeing what they did...

I didn't use pressure later on during honing though. I usually use negative pressure...

The rough stones were broken in too. There was no micro chipping. Like I said, the thing shaves well, but I could swear it feels different. It might be an over active imagination...

 

[mparker762]

Either I'm being hyper sensitive, or the wider bevel is not as good.

the wider bevels affect the honing speed but don't really affect the shave. In the extreme case the bevel goes all the way from the edge to the spine and you have a wedge, and those can cause problems because they have a tendency to suck down to your face, but short of that no wide bevels don't cause any intrinsic problems during the shave.

 

[SavantStrike]

the wider bevels affect the honing speed but don't really affect the shave. In the extreme case the bevel goes all the way from the edge to the spine and you have a wedge, and those can cause problems because they have a tendency to suck down to your face, but short of that no wide bevels don't cause any intrinsic problems during the shave.

So it's just me being paranoid? Perhaps the visual difference made me think there was a functional difference.

I guess the fairly comfortable dry shave should have clued me in to the fact that it still works fine with a wider bevel...

Speaking of shaves, I think I will shave with it tomorrow in the state it's in now. Then I can say from personal experience that you veteran straight shavers are right, it is possible to shave comfortably off of 8k with no paste. I already know it will pass that test from the dry shave on my upper lip...

I also think I want to try to get a video of my heel honing technique up on youtube. I could due with few good critiques to help me get it right next time...

 

[northpaw]

the wider bevels affect the honing speed but don't really affect the shave. In the extreme case the bevel goes all the way from the edge to the spine and you have a wedge, and those can cause problems because they have a tendency to suck down to your face, but short of that no wide bevels don't cause any intrinsic problems during the shave.

Agreed. My old Sheffield near-wedge has the widest bevel of my razors, and it's my most comfortable shaver by far.

 

[Kees]

Bevel width is a function of: blade thickness, angle of bevel on the hone which is determined by spine thickness and thickness of the tape that some of us use on the spine. Also warpage can cause bevel thicknes to vary along the bevel. Last but not least: if you use a lot of pressure when honing the bevel width will increase as well.

 

[professorchaos]

the wider bevels affect the honing speed but don't really affect the shave. In the extreme case the bevel goes all the way from the edge to the spine and you have a wedge, and those can cause problems because they have a tendency to suck down to your face, but short of that no wide bevels don't cause any intrinsic problems during the shave.

+1. Many, but not all, of my older razors have a wider bevel. Doesn't detract from the shave.

 

[gugi]

and the post is gone

 

[Kees]

and the post is gone

????

 

[English]

Sometimes when you have a badly set blade, you need to use different techniques.

First, make sure your bevel edge setting hone is perfectly flat.

Second you can run the blade say five times backwards and forwards on one side and then the same on the other. Do his until you have levelled out irregularities. You can test with a marker pen on the edge and honing bevels.

Don't be too heavy handed.

Third, do the same thing but going forwrd and back using circles and ensuring the heel and the toe are being honed.

Wash the hone surface and go back to honing as normal.

Hopefully any irregularities in the blade will have been evened out.

If this is going knowhere, maybe you need to go down to a lower level grit e.g. 400 grit.

1000 grit sandpaper is pretty fierce stuff compared to the 1000 grit japanese hone.

I have found that 1000 grit wet and dry cures most problems very quickly.

You can certainly see were you have been once you have used it and you can see if there are parts of the edge that are not receiving attention and rectify accordingly.

 

[SavantStrike]

Sometimes when you have a badly set blade, you need to use different techniques.

First, make sure your bevel edge setting hone is perfectly flat.

Second you can run the blade say five times backwards and forwards on one side and then the same on the other. Do his until you have levelled out irregularities. You can test with a marker pen on the edge and honing bevels.

Don't be too heavy handed.

Third, do the same thing but going forwrd and back using circles and ensuring the heel and the toe are being honed.

Wash the hone surface and go back to honing as normal.

Hopefully any irregularities in the blade will have been evened out.

If this is going knowhere, maybe you need to go down to a lower level grit e.g. 400 grit.

1000 grit sandpaper is pretty fierce stuff compared to the 1000 grit japanese hone.

I have found that 1000 grit wet and dry cures most problems very quickly.

You can certainly see were you have been once you have used it and you can see if there are parts of the edge that are not receiving attention and rectify accordingly.

So this stroke you're talking about is actually both normal and back honing to get the blade where you want it to be?

Interesting... very interesting... I shall have to try this now .

Thanks for the tips, I was still stumped as to how to fix a problem like this should it come up again.

 

[English]

So this stroke you're talking about is actually both normal and back honing to get the blade where you want it to be?

Interesting... very interesting... I shall have to try this now .

Thanks for the tips, I was still stumped as to how to fix a problem like this should it come up again.

Exactly.

One warning. When you do this, sometimes the honing bevel can take a lot of wear to come into correct allignment. Once set however it is set.
If you want to just fix the edge wrather than "the razor" you can use two or three levels of tape along the spine. However (mybe not in your lifetime) but in the future the badly set bevel will come into play again. Like night follows day.