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when is a Finish a Finish????

so I was thinking this morn. at least here it is often said that whatever the razor was last honed on, is the finish for that razor.

so my question is, "when transitioning from one medium to another how many laps makes for a change in the finish?"

one could also argue that its not the number of laps, but rather whenever the last remnants of the previous finish are gone.

what say you?

camo
 

Steve56

Ask me about shaving naked!
When the striae from the last stone/media are gone to the edge. You can see this with a loupe. Then maybe give it a few more just for good luck, lol.

But striae and counting are not the only things, you need to become accustomed to how the razor feels on the hone as the edge reaches ‘equilibrium’ on a given stone/media. You can hone by this ‘input’ alone and many people do.

You can count strokes and note how many it takes to remove the striae of the last media, which will depend on both the previous and final media, and the steel hardness/resistance, but it’s an interesting thing to do. It will give you a ballpark idea of how fast your finisher is too.

When I was learning, I went by feel and observation, but I also counted strokes. I ended up doing 2 sets of 20 circles and ellipses, followed by 40 linear strokes, flipping the blade each stroke. On the jnats and razors that I was using at the time, that worked pretty well about 95% of the time. Since then, my stones have gotten better so I can reduce that a bit, except for super hard Swedes and cast steels for example, which need a lot more.
 
What Steve said!
When you think all the striations have made it to the edge do at least another 20 or more stroke. Make certain.
Some stones being very fast and vice-versa, counting strokes is useless. Keep an eye on it.
Microscopes are great, loupes will help a lot too!
 
these are the answers I expected but wanted to make sure. I both feel change and watch change thru my loupe.

camo
 
Any work done on a new abrasive (such as a stone) is a new finish. A 1k edge with a single pass on a 20000 grit stone is no longer a 1k finish. Now when a stone has refined an edge to the most it is capable of, that is a “maxxed out” edge on that finisher.

Most peoples’ coticule edge after doing a handful of water passes is not a “maxxed out” edge, but it is still that coticules edge.
 
When in the very fine micron size, even a microscope will not reveal the striae. The wavelength of the light (at about 0.3um) then starts to come into play.


If you have a microscope you are not looking at the scratch pattern. You will be able to see the refinement at the absolute edge.
A loupe is used more to see scratch pattern and edge to a much lesser degree.
 
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