YAY Microscopic edge pictures

[albsat]

@albsat

The Bismarck with the 10k shaved perfectly.
It felt more smooth and keen than the Nero Ardesia finish.

I know you're looking into an affordable setup, so you're basically looking for the same thing I was after.
This works perfectly.
You could add some paste if you would want to give it an extra bump.

I have added the King 4K to my line-up so I need less work on the 6K.
Not necessary, but it does safe me some time and should make my 6k last a bit longer.

Honestly I am very tempted to just pull the trigger on the 16K Rockstar, out of curiousity and probably because I have some kind of acquisition disease.
I notice you are far more responsible when it comes to your purchases. I envy you, because I'm an impulsive idiot. You're definetly doing the right thing by taking it slow and doing your research. It will end up saving you alot of money.

My purchase list (just to prove what kind of a moron I am):

YJSharp 1K-6K --> still use the 1K for rough work
Adaee 12K cnat --> use it to keep my microscope from tipping over. I really can't see any other use for it
Amazon whetstones 240/800 and 3000/8000 which were total rubbish and completely useless. They ended up with some mold after storing them without having completely dried, so I threw them out.
La Lune slate (sold)
Shapton glass 1K HR --> which was a good and fast bevel setter. (sold)
Black Shadow (sold)
New la grise coticule (sold, was 40 mm and I didn't like the narrow stone)
Antique Coticule (sold, but it was a good stone - basically just tried to make my wallet bleed less)
Vintage Pike translucent Ark slib (for sale)
Vintage Diamond King Barberhone (for sale)
Rouge du salm (fantastic stone, but I sold it when I went back to DE razors)
Belgian blue whetstone (sold)
King 1K - 6K (kept and in use)
King 4K (recent purchase and in use)
Naniwa 10 k superstone (even though knives&tools sold it as an advance) (kept and in use)
Black Shadow (yes, another one)
Green Shadow
Nero Ardesia
Labeled Escher (sold, even narrower than 40 mm)

Great post. Only users like me can understand you..

You will find your perfect setup I am sure. My luck in disguise is that I can't order stones due to very high shipping cost or sell what I buy otherwise my hone setup trend would be similar to yours. Shaving hobby is a desease.

I have a king 1000 /6000 and lapping films. I have found out thanks to the great help from @H Brad Boonshaft that 99% problems that I am having on honing is due to geometry imperfections of two Chinese razors. I am not that good on correcting them. I will focus only on my other 2 vintage razors from now and on and if I get a new razor I will get them shave ready. At least this will help me on maintaining them.

 

[Shaun asleep]

I just took a post-shave and post strop pic of my Dovo Bismarck that had a nicely straight edge before the shave.
I used it 3 days ago, but haven't done anything to it since my last shave - other than a strop on canvas and leather.

Now it looks like this...

Is that normal edge wear after a shave or caused by a bad strop and/or stropping technique?
I'm hoping it's not the last...because one more thing I can't do is just what I need to keep me motivated.... :/

 

[JPO]

Is that normal edge wear after a shave

The short answer is no. It should not look like this even after 100 shaves.
It's hard to say what happened here.

Is the canvas strop clean? Heavy stropping on a dirty canvas can be rough on an edge. In my opinion even a clean strop can damage an edge if too much pressure is used.

It seems like you have a burr/false edge. I am not able to see how this was shaving good before this.

Did the razor scream as you were shaving? Even a thin grind should not scream when you shave.
A well prepared and hydrated beard, and a low shaving angle helps.

 

[psfred]

There are a few possibilities: Bad stropping, as you suggest, edge failure from bad steel at the very edge (very difficult to keep the carbon in the steel at the very edge when manufacturing) or possibly less than stellar shaving technique.

If the steel is marginal at the very apex it will fail by bending (which is what I think I see). Strop again and see what it looks like, it may "stand back up" fairly well. It will just fail again next shave though, what you need to do is joint the edge, reset the bevel and hone it up again. Might take a couple times to get to good hard steel, and after than you should get better edge retention.

Be careful wiping the blade, excess pressure sideways on the edge can do this too!

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

Looks like the edge was rolled, and some heavy handed stropping fatigued and broke off the rolled edge.

As said you need to get back to good steel, Joint the edge straight, so that when you look straight down on the edge all you see is white reflection, if you see any black spots, that are where the bevels are not meeting, joint again one or two strokes. Do not use pressure jointing or you will create more problems.

Strop on linen 20 laps to remove much of the burr from jointing and do a set of 10 circles then 10,5,2,and 10 single half laps, the bevels should be meeting again and much more of the deep 1k stria should be gone.

Watch your honing pressure, Bismarcks are thin and if you use too much pressure you can flex the blade and lift the edge off the edge, maybe not completely off the edge but enough to where the edge is not making full contact but enough to make a burr and not cut it off. Use sharpie ink, when learning you should be inking the bevels every time you stop to look at the blade, Colored ink is much easier to see, I like red or blue.

Finish on a clean 10k, a single set of half laps like above should get it polished nicely with no 1k stria showing.

Take a good look at your strops, may be contaminated, are strops new? Where are they stored, do you wipe them down before use.

You do not need more stones, you need to master the 1 & 6k stones and pressure. Go to paste .50 CBN or pure Chrome Oxide on clean cardboard to test, then strop a piece of $5 a yard cotton strapping. .50 past is 20-30K

Should have kept the Escher and the Pike Trans, the rest can go except the 1,6, and 10k. 16k are problematic, you, do not need more wild variables…
Slow down.

There are no magic stones.

 

[Shaun asleep]

Hmmpfff

There was no screaming until I looked at it under the microscope.

My strop is fairly new, but you might have noticed my thread about some problems I have had with it.
I'm probably putting too much pressure on it, as suggested - both on the canvas (which is very rough btw) and leather.
That said, I just looked at the edge of the Ertan Suer blade that gave me a good shave this morning (WITH GREEN SHADOW FINISH!!!) and it doesn't have these chips.

@H Brad Boonshaft I still have the Pike, actually just took a Gold Monkey to 10K then the Pike translucent. But the result is scratchy, though the edge seems straight.

This chipped Bismarck edge combined with the Böker customer feedback have me feeling a bit down atm.
Not enjoying much of this right this minute, but I should be happy that this mornings GS shave was quite well and focus on that instead.

 

[JPO]

This is a picture of the edge of a Gold Monkey I just finished on it

I would limit my variables. I think the Gold Dollar is a unnecessary wild card.
Stick to one razor, and eliminate as many variables as possible.

I think you are making things allot more difficult then it needs to be by trying allot of different things at the same time.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

Lots of random and deep stria on the bevel. What is the horizontal stria mid blade from?

You have to take a pristine shave ready bevel and edge to a Trans Ark, it is just a polisher/ finisher.

All that stria needs to go.

Stop jumping from one razor to another from, one stone combination to another. Finishing is not your problem.

Learn to fully set a bevel on a 1k and refine the 1k bevel, (minimal stria) and straight edge, (Joint the edge as straight as possible).

Then polish off all the 1k stria with the 6k and bring the bevels to meeting fully.

Joint the edge straight and bring back to meeting with lite laps on a clean 6k, test shave. Stay on the 6k until you can shave comfortably off the 6k. A king 6k edge is a very shaveable edge.

Until you can do this, you are wasting steel and your time on finishers. Stop buying stones, invest in a quality strop. If your strop has issues, you are undoing all the hours of good honing you are doing stropping on a strop that is damaging your edge.

 

[Shaun asleep]

The edge looked similar to my better 10k finishes before I hit the small translucent stone.
But I lust admit I have never treated the surface. The seller told me it was ready to use and I understand hard arks bearly wear at all.

Probably pressure again and what not. I'm going to have to admit that I have been hitting so many walls that I am close to giving up or at best let this rest for a while.

Hat off to all you selfhoners!

Would a Jende Nanostrop ultra Bench cloth strop be a useful replacement to my hanging strop of questionable quality?
It seems easier to use, not having to dictate the tension oneself.

I realise it's meant to be used with paste or sprays but could it possibly replace a leather strop entirely?

 

[Christian1212]

Regular strop, Tony Miller has my vote. Think I would go for the Griffiths paddle strop before I got the jende stuff.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

Dude, Simplify, reduce the variables. A King 1k, 6k, and quality hanging strop, Tony Miller about $50.

Actually, most folks use more pressure and have to regulate more, to use less pressure on a paddle strop.

You keep looking for the magic bullet, it is in your hands, your eyes and between your eyes.

If you cannot get a 6k edge to shave, no amount of magic paste, stones or trick strops will fix that. Oh, you may get lucky and get an edge to shave with some mumbo jumbo concoction or technique, but how do you repeat that?

Ink your bevels and study where the ink is coming off. Modify your technique until you are removing ink uniformly from heel to toe, back of the bevel to the edge, and most of all remove ALL the 1k stria.

Where did that horizontal stria on the Ark bevel come from, it’s not the stone.

 

[albsat]

@Shaun asleep

How is it going the progress?

 

[Shaun asleep]

@albsat Working on it.

My new Dovo XL strop arrived today. It feels ALOT softer and more comfortable to use (less resistance), smoother draws, I don't know how to call this. But it feels better than the stiff and scewed thing I was using.

I'm getting help from an old Swedish buddy (he's also a forum member. Not sure if he wants to be named or associated with my failure publically, so I'm keeping his name a secret for now ).
Anyhow, he found out about this thread, noticed I was in distress and decided to guide me privately through e-mail.

If there is any significant improvement or breakthrough, then I'll be very happy to report back.

If not, I do want to say that I'm shaving off my edges just fine every morning.
There is no doubt that they can improve with the right amount of practice, time and perseverance.

So I'm taking it a bit slower, stopped honing 3 different razors in a row, focussing on one razor to hone and fine-tuning my technique. Other than that I'm just trying to enjoy the shaves I'm getting whilst also perfecting my shaving technique.

 

[albsat]

Good luck man.

I am starting to believe that it would have been better getting 1 or 2 shave ready razors, a finisher stone and a strop.

I am finding out that the better the status of the razor, much easier for a beginner like me to hone it.

I am not getting the best out of the 1k/6k stone myself but I am focusing only on a correct geometry shape razor (a vintage) now that it is easier to get a bevel. I am struggling on refining the bevel and maybe I might need another stone 3000 or 4000 to cover my inexperience.

My eyes are on this affordable stone jUUMA Whetstone Pro 3.000.

 

[natto]

So I'm taking it a bit slower, stopped honing 3 different razors in a row, focussing on one razor to hone and fine-tuning my technique.

I like this post,

 

[mrjin]

@JPO since we're talking slates to calm down an aggressive synthetic edge...

I seem to recall you are a fan of the Shapton Rockstar series. Have you, or anyone else, by any chance had experience with the 16k rockstar?

I noticed they go pretty cheap. If I am looking for a cheap and quick finisher that 16k might be all I need? If it's too harsh, then I could do some light strokes on my slate pile?

Go for the 10K or even 8K RS. The 16K one is super scratchy, leaves stria like ~5k, not as bad as the Kuromaku 12K, but I'm definitely not happy to use it with SRs.

 

[mrjin]

I do have it, but I have not used it yet.

However,

I have used the RockStar 1k, 4k and 8k. So far, I like them. I like them more than the glass stones because of the extra thickness and better value proposition. I am a fan of the glass stones but they only last me a few weeks or months when I use them daily, so the release of the RockStar line was welcome. Others might use them sparingly so the thickness of the glass stones probably won't be an issue.

Now, few things on the 16k: with the glass stone, there was/is a long discussion rooted from some users which had/have issues with them. I now see this trend with the 16k RockStar as well which is weirdly being linked to the 16k glass stone. Truth is, some users struggle using all different kinds of stones. This does not necessarily means these stones are faulty. I use my 16k glass stone quite a lot. Just finished one, started another one recently. It's been all good so far. They perform well, just as my 30k or G7's I have tried in the past.

In my experience, high grit Shapton stones are OK/acceptable/good (Glass stone, G7, RockStar) as long as you don't do too many laps, otherwise the edge becomes uncomfortable. If the previous work was done correctly, start doing just a few laps on the 16k and test how the edge evolved. Then decide if it needs more laps or not. Do small steps, don't over do it and it will be all right. It's not rocket science, as we say here in a corner of Veldhoven.

Not necessarily the users. I've almost the full sets of Shapton RS & Kuromaku, Naniwa Arata & Kagayaki and some Kings. So far the only two stones I had problems were Kuromaku 12K and RS 16K. It puzzled me for a long time that the edge stopped progressing after Kuromaku 12K. I had always been thinking it was me until I got sometime to do some controlled comparison. Then I realized that the Kuromaku left stria cannot be removed by a 2K stone. For the RS 16K, I noticed it was coarse on receiving it, it does give a keen edge, just scratches the bevel pretty badly, but not as bad as the Kuromaku 12K though.