Honing silver steel?

[Kema]

I am having problems honing my newly acquired solingen extra silver steel. Blade passes thumb nail test without problems and it's popping hair like no other blade. When I strop it and start to shave it always pulls and I go for Wapi or DA to finish shave.

Is there a special procedure I should follow with silver steel? silver content of this blade seems pretty high cause it darkens pretty fast like silver tableware.

 

[mparker762]

Silver steel doesn't actually have silver in it. The name comes from the way it looks when polished. It's a high carbon steel, and hones like any other high carbon steel.

If it "darkens pretty fast" then that's an odd sign. What's the brand of the razor in question?

Interestingly enough the phenomenon of silver tarnish is a fairly recent phenomenon. Silver is tarnished by sulphur and prior to the industrial revolution about the only source of atmospheric sulphur were the occasional volcanos.

 

[Thebigspendur]

Not completely true about silver tarnish. Silver tarnish is an oxide and if you polish up silver and wear it in even a pristine environment it almost instantly begins to blacken. The higher the humidity and moisture around the faster it tarnishes. Sulphur just speeds things along as will many other chemicals. part of the problem is most silver used is sterling which is usually 925 content. Its the other stuff in it like sulphur and antimony and bismuth that makes it more likely to tarnish faster. Objects made from 999 silver tarnish much slower.

 

[Kema]

Here is the blade. You can actually see the line where to metals are joint together. Same line is visible on the other side also. Other end is rusting but the blade isn't. I still believe that blade has some silver content. Blade was never used when I got it so maybe it just needs more aggressive approach.

Back to the stones

 

[zippo]

If you keep doing the thumb nail test you will keep wrecking your edge,this test is a very rough on the edge and personaly I never use it ,just keep going with you stones,(paientence ) if the edge is popping hairs on you arm your about 3/4 of the way there.
The test I use which I find the most helpful is to run the blade along the very top of my arm hairs ,when its taking the tips off with ease I then go to the diamond lapping paste , ten passes on 1 micron then again on .5 micron then finish with 10 on .25 micron and then strop ,it works every time and gives a very comfortable shave
I`m not saying that this is the method that you or anyone else should use ,it is just what works for me and may be a bit of a guide to help
Kind regards Peter

 

[jamesbeat]

The metal that is alloyed with silver to produce sterling silver is mostly copper which is added for wear resistance.
I have a small bar of fine silver (999) and it tarnishes considerably faster than sterling silver objects that are stored in the same place and under identical conditions.

Silver steel contains no silver, even though I'm sure I read it in a razor book somewhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_steel