Hello everyone,
This is my first razor honing experiment with the Gold Monkey 777 razor. My original motivation was really to understand sharpness in general a bit better, but shaving with a SR has become kind of a side quest. Granted, having done all the research and thinking and honing, I still can't shave with a SR. I'm okay with a shavette, but the SR is large and unwieldy in my hands still.
I'm looking for some feedback on my honing process and results. Here are some before pictures:
There are some chips at the heel and toe. I have not made any geometry changes.
For my initial foray, I've decided to follow the scienceofsharp process pretty strictly:
The resulting edge can pass HHT to about the same level as a fresh Derby DE razor.
Some tips for others learning honing:
This is my first razor honing experiment with the Gold Monkey 777 razor. My original motivation was really to understand sharpness in general a bit better, but shaving with a SR has become kind of a side quest. Granted, having done all the research and thinking and honing, I still can't shave with a SR. I'm okay with a shavette, but the SR is large and unwieldy in my hands still.
I'm looking for some feedback on my honing process and results. Here are some before pictures:
There are some chips at the heel and toe. I have not made any geometry changes.
For my initial foray, I've decided to follow the scienceofsharp process pretty strictly:
- Remove chips with Shapton Glass 500.
- The bevel is created, but not set.
- Set bevel with Shapton Pro 1500.
- Wet thumbnail test across entire edge.
- Undercut rides onto blade across entire edge.
- Jointed and reset bevel 4 times to build muscle memory and get through some (presumed because chipping) bad factory edge steel.
- Refine edge with Shapton Pro 5000
- Used loupe to check scratch patterns.
- Finish with some edge trailing strokes according to SOS process.
- 30 laps on hanging denim strip pasted with Mother's mag to create micro-convexity and remove burr.
- 30 laps on hanging leather strop sprayed with 0.25 micron diamond to further refine apex.
- Hand stropped and clean towel stropped to clean up apex.
- 50 laps on clean leather hanging strop.
The resulting edge can pass HHT to about the same level as a fresh Derby DE razor.
Some tips for others learning honing:
- Mark the edge with a sharpiel at every possible opportunity.
- It's really surprisingly easy to miss parts of the heel and toe.
- Torque and roll pressure through heel to toe on every stroke.
- I found the heel needs to come off the stone by at least 1.5" at the end of the stroke for the tip to get enough attention.
- gssixguns has videos demonstrating his "Japanese" stroke.
- Narrow stones and strops are really easier to use.
- Limited width forces me to pay attention to torque, pressure and even coverage heel to toe.
- I found scrubbing strokes that use the entire width of the stone almost always left sharpie marks untouched, but Japanese stroke was more even. It helped to imagine the stone was only half as wide as it was.
- After a shave, I hand strop and towel strop and let dry for an hour. HHT deteriorates at least 40% (based on my feeling, I guess). The edge seems to be very different to the freshly sharpened edge. I imagine 50 PPS on clean leather will help, but is this change in edge condition normal?
- I'm not sure if my lack of shaving success is lack of
- shaving skill
- stropping skill
- honing skill
- ^^ I suppose it's a bad idea to work on all 3 at the same time
question: is there a more nimble cheap SR that I can play around with? I also have a GD66, which is a similar size.