Guessing my stone isn't fine enough...

[Casey]

I've been slowly teaching myself to shave with a straight razor, and I'm starting to think my stone isn't fine enough.

I've been using my finest- a Spyderco Fine benchstone at 2500 grit. I finish with a strop, loaded with green and black chromium oxide paste. It'll shave when I'm done, but not quite right. It pulls a bit.

Oddly, I don't see the same pulling shaving other areas of my body, just neck and face. Poor technique, or improper equipment?

 

[Scissors]

Other, more experienced folks will have more to say (and will want more info), but 2500 is quite low a grit—also, the Spyderco hones are rather unusual products. Some people will finish on the Spyderco ultra fine, but it takes quite a bit of work.

I understand that unless you had a coticule or Escher hone, the Norton 8K stone used to be the standard stopping point before moving to strops and pastes (and/or pasted strops). Maybe someone here knows how to finish on the Spyderco fine, but I'm thinking you're going to need at least something to get you up to 8K, like the Norton 4K/8K combination stone. Past that, there are coticules, Chinese 12K stones, the aforementioned Spyderco ultra fine, the Shapton 16K and 30K hones—and then will come the pastes, strops, pasted strops, etc. I'm as curious as you as to what the experienced honing folks will recommend, and why.

 

[chess1]

2500 grit is not fine enough. you may use different grit pastes to get a little better edge but it will never give to you proper honed blade.
My suggestion will be send 1 of your razor get honed by pro's and you can see how true shave ready feels(if you haven't done so already)
I agree cheapest option will be norton 4/8k.
coticule,escher jnates are more expensive solution.
gl

 

[mparker762]

If you like the spyderco, then pick up a UF. That should get you nicely sharp with no need for paste if you do your part. If you want to use chrome oxide then make sure it's 0.5 micron or better, and use as little as you can. If you use too much on the strop then it can actually wind up dulling the blade, or at least it won't get as sharp as it should.

 

[LessLemming]

here are many things to be straightened out!!!

First of:
the spyderco fine is NOT rated 2.5K JIS.
The spyderco fine is rated at around 8.000 JIS wich is perfectly fine for finishing a razor.

Second thing: there is no black chromium oxide. The green one is it, the black paste is something else.
If we´re talking about the dovo pastes, the green is a fine paste
the black a very fine.

Sharpening a razor needs not only good hones, but good skill, too.
There are two things you might consider to do.
First: practice more. Get your razor honed professionally and buy a cheap but quite shave ready razor to practice with.

second: get some coarser stones. The spyderco fine might be too fine.
It will not remove enough metal to build a proper bevel on the razor.
The norton 4k/8k can be used for this purpose. The Naniwa 1.000 and 5.000 would be a nice alternative.
Start from scratch with the 1.000 or 4.000 and proceed to the next finer stone when the bevel is ready.
I recommend you to read and try to understand a lot more than you already had

 

[English]

Didn't I answer this exact question 24/48 hours ago?

 

[Casey]

here are many things to be straightened out!!!

First of:
the spyderco fine is NOT rated 2.5K JIS.
The spyderco fine is rated at around 8.000 JIS wich is perfectly fine for finishing a razor.

Second thing: there is no black chromium oxide. The green one is it, the black paste is something else.
If we´re talking about the dovo pastes, the green is a fine paste
the black a very fine.

Sharpening a razor needs not only good hones, but good skill, too.
There are two things you might consider to do.
First: practice more. Get your razor honed professionally and buy a cheap but quite shave ready razor to practice with.

second: get some coarser stones. The spyderco fine might be too fine.
It will not remove enough metal to build a proper bevel on the razor.
The norton 4k/8k can be used for this purpose. The Naniwa 1.000 and 5.000 would be a nice alternative.
Start from scratch with the 1.000 or 4.000 and proceed to the next finer stone when the bevel is ready.
I recommend you to read and try to understand a lot more than you already had

I presume JIS is the Japanese method for grit. If so, we're speaking the same language in different accents. The Spyderco stone (was a member on their web forum for years, still visit periodically) is 2500 grit US, or roughly 8 microns. 2500 grit in the ANSI scale is roughly 8000 Japanese.

That's where things get confusing. My grandfather used a plain surgical black Arkansas stone to hone with. I used it enough times before it disappeared to know it's slightly coarser than the Spyderco fine, so probably about 1500 grit. Maybe I'll try building an edge with the Spyderco mediums- those are about 1000 grit and should work.

I know how to sharpen most anything with an edge, which is why this confuses me so. Doesn't make sense.

 

[azmark]

I love my Spyderco hones but you need a finer stone than the UF. The UF is a 8K stone so maybe looking into a Naniwa 12K. But using a stone should not be in the near future if you just started out with a shave ready. Just get your stropping technique down and you should be set for months until the next time you touch a stone.

If you like the spyderco, then pick up a UF. That should get you nicely sharp with no need for paste if you do your part. If you want to use chrome oxide then make sure it's 0.5 micron or better, and use as little as you can. If you use too much on the strop then it can actually wind up dulling the blade, or at least it won't get as sharp as it should.

 

[Sticky]

If you like the spyderco, then pick up a UF. That should get you nicely sharp with no need for paste if you do your part. If you want to use chrome oxide then make sure it's 0.5 micron or better, and use as little as you can. If you use too much on the strop then it can actually wind up dulling the blade, or at least it won't get as sharp as it should.

I gotta' go with mparker762 on this one.

My UF did much better than 8k (in Norton terms) even before I lapped it. My heavily lapped UF now does better than any 12k that I've ever used. My Spyderco Fine is much closer to 8k than my UF is.

But then again, all my Spydercos are well lapped.

 

[CraigJ]

I have an Ultra fine and a Shapton 8K and 16K. The 8K does not come close to the fineness of the UF. The 16K is definitely sharper than the UF but not by much. If I was going to make a W.A.G. at the grit of UF it would be 14,000. This is my completely unscientific opinion only. I have no figures to back this up.

 

[leighton]

You guys are making too much of this.

I'm going to put it simply, and I hope you have thick skin because this is the truth.

OP, your technique is not good enough. Either with the stone, or with shaving. Probably your shaving technique is the worst because your able to cut hairs with the razor. But shaving off a 1k stone is possible so... Anyway, I've shaved off of a 4k stone a couple of times, its not the best, but its doable.

Pulling is caused by either a really sharp razor and too high of a blade angle (unlikely in this case), or a dull razor. The really sharp razor doesn't exactly pull as much as...completely stop and attempt to yank out your face hairs because the blade got caught in the hair because the angle isn't shallow enough to chop through the hair.

Ok, so that issue done, your technique has more to do with a comfortable shave than anything else. Like I said, a 4k edge is good enough if your a master at the straight. But its not as pleasant either.

On to finishes.

Contrary to what you may think after reading the responses you have gotten so far, the fine is actually perfectly fine. Pun intended. You can shave off of that stone, and in fact, you should learn to get so good at honing that you can actually shave comfortably off of that stone. However, it takes time to get that good. The practical grit of the stone is 8k in our terms.

The crox should have smoothed out the edge and refined it a little better off of the spyderco fine. However, if the edge isn't made good enough, the crox will do little to help. Sure, you can do hundreds of laps on the crox to get a razor to shave ready, but thats impractical.

You can either send the razor to someone who knows what they're doing, or keep at it until you can shave off the fine. No guarantees if you choose the second option. Could take forever, could take a day, maybe never.