Honing Help With Pictures

[JohnEzra]

Hello Everyone,

Been a while since I've been on here, been quite busy and such. Long story short, its been about two years since I've done anything straight razor related, and I must admit I had resigned to using DE razors to save time and minimize maintenance. That being said, things have finally slowed down for me lately, and I've been itching to get back into straight razors.

I spent some time last night honing a few razors, and getting them back into shaving condition, or so I thought. I went to have a shave this morning, and to my horror the razor felt awful, tugging and pulling like the first time I had used a straight razor fresh from The Art of Shaving many moons ago. To confirm that the edge wasn't where it needed to be, I did a few of the standard tests, and it barely tree topped my arm hair, and wouldn't pass the HHT at all, granted I have very fine hair, but I don't remember ever struggling with these tests once I got a handle on honing. It seems I have lost my touch, but luckily I took some pictures along the way. I also re-honed the razor today, with better results on the HHT, but it still doesn't look great under the microscope.

I am using Shapton Ha No Kuromaku stones, in the following progression: 2K - 5K - 8K - 12K - 30K

This first progression I just worked on each stone until the razor felt "ready" to move on to the next stone, which was somewhere between 25-50 laps per stone.

Here are the results:

2K:

5K:

8K:

12K:

30K:


I noticed some chipping after the 12K hone, however I'm not quite sure why that occurred, however i think it may have been two many passes.

The second progression, which I did today but have yet to shave with I tried to keep the number of laps per stone lower, as I thought that could have been my issue before.

2K-50 laps to set bevel:

5K-25 laps:

8K-20 laps:

12K-15 laps:

30K-10 laps:


After this progression, the razor would pass the HHT around 75% of the time, and the edge looks notably less chipped, however the bevels don't look nearly as well polished, indicating that I might have jumped too quickly from stone to stone, not totally removing the scratches from the previous stone before moving on, which I suspect will effect edge quality. I guess I wont really know until the morning when I try to use it, but my hopes aren't too high.

If anyone has any insight as to what I am doing wrong, and what I need to to to get back on track, please let me know.

 

[SliceOfLife]

You have chips at every stage... I can see them on my phone, which is maybe 20x. You aren't nearly done at 2k.


What razor are we looking at?

 

[JohnEzra]

You have chips at every stage... I can see them on my phone, which is maybe 20x. You aren't nearly done at 2k.


What razor are we looking at?

It's a 7/8 Portland Razor Co. I'll head back to the 2k and try to get the bevel set better/get rid of the chips.

 

[JohnEzra]

You have chips at every stage... I can see them on my phone, which is maybe 20x. You aren't nearly done at 2k.


What razor are we looking at?

Does this look like a better result off of the 2K to you?


Thanks in advance.

 

[SliceOfLife]

From what I can see on my phone, yes that does look a lot better.

 

[JohnEzra]

Here are the results from attempt number 3, still not perfect regarding the HHT, however, I think its a step in the right direction. Id still love any suggestions anyone has to improve this/ any other issues you guys might be seeing that i am not.

The real test will be the shave tomorrow morning.

2K:


5K:


8K:


12K:


30K:

 

[ajduplessis]

Maybe add a couple of light spine leading strokes on 8, 12 & 30K. Once done honing strop the crap out of it on linen/canvas or suede, then plenty leather.

Don't underestimate what can be achieved with a strop if the honing was good.

 

[JohnEzra]

So the shave this morning was substantially better than before, but still not quite as good as I feel it should be. I did half of my face straight off the stone, and then stropped the crap out of it before the other half. This smoothed out the feeling a bit, but it still tugged more than I’d like, so I still need a bit of help getting that last little bit out of things, as I’m not quite sure what went wrong.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Don't shave straight off the stone. Razors need to be stropped.


That said it sounds like you're honing is moving in the right direction but you'll need to keep at it probably spend a little more time at every stage still and see if that keeps improving the results .

 

[JohnEzra]

Don't shave straight off the stone. Razors need to be stropped.


That said it sounds like you're honing is moving in the right direction but you'll need to keep at it probably spend a little more time at every stage still and see if that keeps improving the results .

I wouldn't normally shave without stropping, I just wanted to test things without introducing another variable.

 

[JohnEzra]

So I seem to be making some decent progress, went back to the trusty lapping film, and had the best shave so far. It seems that I was actually not using quite enough pressure, and was leaving the edge under-developed. Here are the results, let me know where you experts think improvements could be made.

Bevel set on 12 micron:


9 micron:


5 micron:


3 micron:


1 micron:


0.3 micron:

 

[SliceOfLife]

Definitely some guess work here, but I'm seeing some chipping. I've circled in blue what looks like coarser scratches remaining causing chips and in red what looks like possible pitting and chips caused by pitting to my eyes.

Blue circles are at the ends of striations that from my review of your pictures seem to originate on the 5mu surface, so maybe do more work on 3mu and 1 mu to help with those.

Red circles if they are indeed pitting, the only fix is to hone back the edge aggressively (on a low grit stone) to get into clean steel. This is something to be done with caution if the razor isn't a cheap/beater blade.

The edge definitely looks cleaner than previously... but that helps to reveal potential pitting scars.

 

[JohnEzra]

Definitely some guess work here, but I'm seeing some chipping. I've circled in blue what looks like coarser scratches remaining causing chips and in red what looks like possible pitting and chips caused by pitting to my eyes.

Blue circles are at the ends of striations that from my review of your pictures seem to originate on the 5mu surface, so maybe do more work on 3mu and 1 mu to help with those.

Red circles if they are indeed pitting, the only fix is to hone back the edge aggressively (on a low grit stone) to get into clean steel. This is something to be done with caution if the razor isn't a cheap/beater blade.

The edge definitely looks cleaner than previously... but that helps to reveal potential pitting scars.

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this, its super helpful to have someone with more experience explain to me exactly what I am seeing under the scope.

The pitting totally makes sense, as this is an old Doubl Duck that i picked up pretty cheap just to use for honing practice.

 

[Slash McCoy]

Before you do anything, do a standard sharpness test and then have a test shave. Unless you just want to hone some more, in which case perfect excuse.

 

[JohnEzra]

Before you do anything, do a standard sharpness test and then have a test shave. Unless you just want to hone some more, in which case perfect excuse.

I shaved with that edge last night and it was actually pretty enjoyable, I’d give it a 7/10 for comfort and 9/10 for closeness of shave. It went into my rotation of “acceptably sharp razors” pile, and I’ve moved on to practicing and trying to get an even better edge on a mystery razor stamped Sheffield English Steel.