The true test

[life2short1971]

HHT?....Nope... TNT....Nope...TPT.....uh uh......4 pass bbs shave and finish with Ogallal Bay Rum a/s and Zero burn. i have been playing with my Coti's alot lately. Enough to bring a good edge to a Wade and Butcher wedge from a rounded bevel as a matter of fact. That wasn't todays razor though it was a Fillarmonica D/T 13 that I dulled and brought back on only the hard side of a Les Latneuses Coticule. So to all of you who have recently bought coticules as your primqry stone there is light at the end of the tunnel. I too couldn't sharpen a razor just 3 months ago and now its like I had an epiphany! I can can dull and sharpen all my razors with just my coticules. I do cheat with a Naniwa 1k though. Any way there is hope don't give up!

 

[Utopian]

Despite reading arguments to the contrary, I see not point in dulling a razor before sharpening it.

Congrats on your accomplishment!

 

[life2short1971]

I agree but if its already sharp How do I know what progress I have made. I was doing as a learning process its not something I would do to My Filly or Le Grelot to name a couple. I don't automatically dull a razor to freshen it just the ones I learn with.

 

[Bart]

Despite reading arguments to the contrary, I see not point in dulling a razor before sharpening it.

Congrats on your accomplishment!

Ron, I hope you don't mind me quoting a post of your own good self, from another thread on this forum:

What did you use to set the bevel and how did you confirm that the bevel was set?

I am the person who came up with the idea to run a razor, edge down, over a glass object, and my motives for that advice were exactly the same question.
In many forum threads that try to talk a novice honer through the sharpening process, it's often one of the usual blind spots. If the bevel isn't flat and very near the maximum keenness that can be attained with the "bevel setting hone", any attempt to further refine (or polish, or whatever people like to call the rest of the honing process) is futile.

There are several ways to judge whether the bevel is ready to move on, but they all rely on observations that can be difficult to interpret. More often than not, razors are honed that still shave, albeit not comfortably. Sometimes, the novice user relied heavily on pasted stropping, to squeeze a couple more shaves out of his dulling razor. He even might have lifted the spin occasionally during his first honing attempts, or he got the razor from someone who used tape while honing, while he prefers to hone without. All reasons why a razor could perform well on tests such at the TNT, TPT or SAH. Hence the novice should be looking for a change in any of these tests, as proof that the very edge finally started responding to the hone, which in itself is proof of a fully developed bevel.
Instead of having to second guess whether the novice honer possessed the skill to make that call, I figured it would be better to suggest a simple "pass or fail" test.

If the razor is dulled just below a capacity to shave the honer's arm hair, and next he works on a hone till he can pass that test again along the entire edge, the bevel is ready beyond doubt.

After some trials, rubbing the razor once over a glass object was the gentlest method I could find, to achieve the desired effect. Guys with very dense and thick arm hair might need to repeat it a second time.
On a razor that had a good bevel to start with, it takes almost no work to undo the stroke on glass.

I am convinced that if someone is not able to bring the edge back to shaving arm hair, he doesn't stand a chance anyway, for turning it into an good edge for shaving beard hair.

Obviously, as with any test, one can always do without, or depend on some other way to make sure that the bevel is ready. Yet, I find the "beer bottle trick" convenient enough to use it myself, whenever I feel a razor is beyond a mere touch-up.

Kind regards,
Bart.