Thread: Why is the 1st shave after honing so disagreeable?

Esteemed colleageus and research associates,

OK, so here is a thread about my new razor: Wustof 5/8

I have pics of the edge at 200x coming right off the 1um diamond lapping film (honed straight up and down, dry).

Then the same edge after 15 laps on a lightly coated chrome ox hanging strop (stropped at an angle)
and then stropped on new TM "smooth" cavas and latigo (straight up and down, as it is a 3" strop, I also mistakenly called it "linen" for some sleep deprived reason...? It's truly canvas).

As can be seen, the bevel has been rounded/smoothed out significantly, and striations are visible in a diagonal direction.

So, the abrasion was carried out by the chrome ox (as per the diagonal striations), and there is little or no visual evidence of what the subsequent canvas and latigo stropping did to the edge. However, perhaps they contribute to simply smoothing out the striations that are there.

As I stated in that post, next time I'll skip the chrome ox and see what canvas and latigo do by themselves.

Nice thread & discussion, thanks guys!

Originally Posted by Chimensch

I read the paper in your link and I didn't find anything that supports your point.

QUOTE: "It seems likely to this author that two mechanisms
give rise to bur formation along the edge during sharpening.
(1) Debris Deposit The polishing and grinding on the
metal faces of a knife blade during sharpening produces an
abrasive polishing action. One may think of this action as
like having thousands of little ploughs (abrasive particles)
that move along the surface pushing scraped up metal, debris,
in front of them. If the abrasion direction is away-from the
edge, direction A of Fig. 3, then the debris will be deposited
along the edge on the face opposite the face being abraded. If the abrasion direction is
into the edge, direction I of Fig. 3, one would not expect debris pile-up along the edge as
now it is being pushed away from the edge. However, as will be shown later, debris does
collect at the edge for abrasion in the I direction, although to a reduced extent. There
must be a subtle mechanism of debris deposit along the edge, perhaps involving some
type of back eddies at the edge.
(2) Bending The width of the blade at the edge and just behind it is extremely thin.
Hence the force against the edge from the abrasive media will result in large stresses,
force per area, at the edge, which can lead to plastic flow (bending) of the edge region.
(Note: The small bumps running parallel to the edge, such as the two labeled bending flow in the Up face
of Fig. 1, result from a small bending flow of the edge region away from your view.)
The combination of the bent edge and the collected debris forms a bur on the side of the
edge located away from the abrading media. (Some authors [1] call this deformed edge and
accumulated metal debris a "wire", but the term bur will be used here.) Burs
that fold around the edge can be called fold-over burs and they
have a variety of shapes with two examples shown in Fig. 2(B).
The edge burs of Fig. 2(A) show little bur material and appear to
be edges that have simply been rounded during sharpening.
However, such edges will be termed "edge burs" here to indicate
a type of edge formed in sharpening that differs from a fold-over
bur." END OF QUOTE

Originally Posted by Chimensch

Maybe you could quote if for me. What I did find was this:

The major conclusion of the study is that of the three honing methods studied, the best method for removing the bur and setting the edge angle is clearly a final polish on leather loaded with a polishing compound such as the chromium oxide or diamond compounds used here.

Verhoevens paper is largely focused on regular knife sharpening, where one deliberately hones one side of the knife until a bur is raised raised, then hones the other side till the bur is raised on the opposing side and finally removes that bur. We all know that razors are sharpened differently, but still Verhoeven's paper offers valuable information about what happens at the surface of an edge during honing.

Apart from that, I own a Tormek sharpening machine, and use that a lot for sharpening various woodworking tools. On a Tormek you can choose whether the wheel turns into the edge or away from the edge. Regardless the method it's very easy to make a plane blade shave hair on a Tormek. But when honed with the wheel turning away from the edge, a blade dulls much sooner. Similar results I get when honing a razor on pasted strops. Keeness is excellent, but durability is not.

Bart.

Originally Posted by Bart

Verhoevens paper is largely focused on regular knife sharpening, where one deliberately hones one side of the knife until a bur is raised raised, then hones the other side till the bur is raised on the opposing side and finally removes that bur. We all know that razors are sharpened differently, but still Verhoeven's paper offers valuable information about what happens at the surface of an edge during honing.

Apart from that, I own a Tormek sharpening machine, and use that a lot for sharpening various woodworking tools. On a Tormek you can choose whether the wheel turns into the edge or away from the edge. Regardless the method it's very easy to make a plane blade shave hair on a Tormek. But when honed with the wheel turning away from the edge, a blade dulls much sooner. Similar results I get when honing a razor on pasted strops. Keeness is excellent, but durability is not.

Bart.

But, in effect, when honing a razor we use both methods. Towards the blade with the hone and then away to smooth with abrasive paste. You seem to be saying that one should only use an increasingly fine series of hones and never paste. I don't see anything wrong with setting the bevel with a hone and then smoothing with paste. This would seem to be the best of both worlds, according to Verhoven. In other words, you seem to be making it an either/or and I don't think that's the conclusion that Verhoven would have made.

Originally Posted by Chimensch

But, in effect, when honing a razor we use both methods. Towards the blade with the hone and then away to smooth with abrasive paste. You seem to be saying that one should only use an increasingly fine series of hones and never paste. I don't see anything wrong with setting the bevel with a hone and then smoothing with paste. This would seem to be the best of both worlds, according to Verhoven. In other words, you seem to be making it an either/or and I don't think that's the conclusion that Verhoven would have made.

I'm not speaking in favor of either of both methods. I'm only saying that an edge that's the result of pull-honing is less durable. Not that it is less sharp, or less suitable for shaving. Verhoeven recommends a pasted strop for bur removal. For sharpening razors, the idea is that one doesn't need the remove any bur. Johnny's method with the exclusive use of barber hones is a bit of an exception to that rule, but even in that case, it seems to be better to remove the wire edge (bur) by backhoning a few strokes and then proceed with a few final normal strokes. If you'd use the knife method on a razor by deliberately raising a bur and removing it with a CrO strop, you'd get what Johnny had when he started this thread: an fine shaving edge that needs very frequent touch-ups.
I'm convinced there are other methods yielding better results, but I'm NOT saying people should stay away from pastes. I'm only convinced that it decreases the "mean time before honing" to some extent.

Best regards,
Bart.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Esteemed colleageus and research associates,

OK, so here is a thread about my new razor: Wustof 5/8

I have pics of the edge at 200x coming right off the 1um diamond lapping film (honed straight up and down, dry).

Then the same edge after 15 laps on a lightly coated chrome ox hanging strop (stropped at an angle)
and then stropped on new TM "smooth" cavas and latigo (straight up and down, as it is a 3" strop, I also mistakenly called it "linen" for some sleep deprived reason...? It's truly canvas).

As can be seen, the bevel has been rounded/smoothed out significantly, and striations are visible in a diagonal direction.

So, the abrasion was carried out by the chrome ox (as per the diagonal striations), and there is little or no visual evidence of what the subsequent canvas and latigo stropping did to the edge. However, perhaps they contribute to simply smoothing out the striations that are there.

As I stated in that post, next time I'll skip the chrome ox and see what canvas and latigo do by themselves.

Nice thread & discussion, thanks guys!

Nice pictures. I can clearly see that irregularities in the honed edge (almost look like tiny chips) are nearly all smoothed out. I can't quite decide whether the rounding over effect is essentially reducing the angle
or is it just thinning it out. eventually though it would seem to lead to less supportive material at the near edge steel.
__

Plastic flow = bending that I can understand. The monkey wrench effect of sharpening razors lies for me at least in their extreme flexibility. I feel myself using too much pressure while stropping yet appear powerless to stop. I sure have lightened up on the hones, though still I may be a bit heavy.

I think in back stropping on paste there would be far less material to be deposited as compared to 8g stone. I wonder how much effect or difference there is back honing wet vs dry

fwiw In the experiments on flat hones the blade was flipped and the opposite face honed 1/1 pass on each face.

Originally Posted by Johnny J

Gssixgun; yes, all the hones I listed in my progression are barber hones. It's hard to know what the grits really are, but the coarsest one seems like it's around 1k and the finest is around 10K or thereabouts. The coarse one is my bevel-setter. I always hone in an X-pattern because the hones are too small to hone any other way.

It's also true that I don't know what that red stuff is (or rather, was). I'm guessing ferric oxide, but it could have been anything.

There's no slack in my pasted strop because it's a loom strop set as tight as it will go.

Puffah, earlier in this thread sixgun suggested using the linen after honing to remove the wire edge, and it actually seems to work. But you're saying backhoning would be better? I've never tried that. But why is it bad to do it with the linen if it seems to work? linen is not meant to correct a sub par honing on a razor, it is a maintenance tool. If linen improves a fresh honed edge I suggest the edge was poor to start with.

Now I'm twice as confused as when I started.

Confucius said a fanatic is someone who redoubles his efforts while losing sight of his goal, so let me restate the goal. The coarseness of my beard makes frequent touch-ups necessary. When I first started shaving, I'd do the touch-ups on the Lithide hone, but that would lead to a wire edge that would break off. Then I started doing touch-ups on Cr02. This was better than doing them on the hone. It didn't create a burr anymore. But it would eventually convex my edge into oblivion. I assume you use the scythe stroke/method with the razor while shaving? A sharp but course edge can benifit from a few strokes over CrO2 but this tends to be true with course barber hones. Experiment is the key tbh.
My third stab is now to revert to touching up on the Lithide hone, but to use the linen (1) to make touch-ups less frequent, and (2) to remove any wire edge that might result. I also might try stab #4: backhoning to remove the wire edge, and linen to reduce the frequency of touch-ups.

There are too many goddamn variables & I'm getting lost in them all.

Originally Posted by Johnny J

Update:

Puff my man, you are a genius. All you guys who suspected there was a problem with my honing were right. The problem is, as Puff says, barber hones are particularly prone to raising a burr, which I tried removing in three different incorrect ways: with my face, with Cr02, and with linen. While the linen does remove the burr, it's not hard to imagine what the edge would look like under an electron microscope after the burr has been ripped off.

So instead I tried as puff suggests, finishing my honing with 3-5 back strokes, then 5 forward strokes (being careful to follow the scratch pattern on the backstroke, i.e. start the X at the toe). I also honed wet, as Puff also suggests. First I tried it on a dull razor that needed the whole hone progression. Then I tried it on a sharp razor using only the Lithide hone to see if I could touch it up, and then remove the burr that results.

In both cases, it is as Puff says; all I need is the hone & plain leather, no Cr02 or linen necessary.

Now the questions I have to resolve experimentally are:

(1) Will a nicely backhoned edge last longer? With my previous honing method, I could feel the quality of the shave starting to deteriorate by the 3rd shave. Let's see if this edge is more durable. It should if the edge was properly shave sharp to start with. Like Ihinted at earlier, try to get the edge to the point just before the wire edge forms. This can be only a couple of extra passes. Backhoning is used just to get you back to where you can proceed forward again from a wire edge.

(2) When the shave quality does start to deteriorate, can I bring it back with the linen & delay having to touch it up? I suppose now that Puff has told me how to touch it up without raising a burr, I suppose there's no harm in frequent touch-ups other than wear on the razor, but if you can cut the wear down, why not, eh? Only go to the linen when plain leather fails to deliver but dont let the edge get to the stage where lots of passes over the linen are needed to recover the edge. Intuition on when linen is needed is leant in the school of hard knocks

Oh, another interesting thing: on the first one or two back-strokes I can actually feel the scraping non-smoothness of the burr being dragged across the hone. When the back-stroke glides as smoothly as the forward stroke, it's time to stop. This seems to take 3-5 strokes. You may have noticed also that while honing, debris gets on the hone and the razors spine picks up on it? This is frequently the wire being formed and breaking off in small pieces. This may only be one small part of the edge that you may not have picked up on in your tests and will only notice while shaving. As a foot note, I stand by the rule that; If the razor requires weight behind it to shave close then it is not sharp. This i use as my bench mark for shaving fit.

Addendum: to answer Simon's questions, yes I've tried those things & they definitely do help. Prep is key. Without good prep I can't get a good shave with any razor, no matter how good the edge is. My prep routine is: degrease face with soap, hot towel or shower, shave oil, lather, let lather soak in while stropping, re-lather. I highly recommend this routine. I also have a preference for big half-hollow blades over small half-hollow or small wedge blades. I haven't been able to get my hands on a big wedge to try it.

I am glad that you getting on top of the problem. I am pleased that my small input has helped. Good luck.

PuFF

Update: using my new method, I still notice deterioration after my 3rd shave, but the magnitude of the deterioration is much less severe. Under my Cr02 method, the 3rd shave was no longer BBS in the ATG direction, forcing me to touch up on the Cr02. Now, all I notice is that the 3rd shave is less comfortable and the alum stings a lot more, but the shave is still BBS ATG. I am hopeful that I can bring it back in line using the linen, and that my eventual touch-up on the Lithide hone can be done in very few strokes. I'll let you all know how it goes.

One question and it might have been answered and I just missed it..... I see it is a W&B but what kind of grind is the razor ???

All my razors shave better after 2/3 shaves. I like to call it the 'bedding in' phase.

There was a thread before where we discussed this in depth. (maybe lost in crash though)

Sixgun: it's a wide but paper thin full hollow and the steel is not very hard. Maybe that's why it's so delicate.

Poona: you might want to try the backhoning technique that Puffah describes in this thread. I used to have that bedding-in period too, but in my case what was going on during the bedding-in was, I was removing the burr left over from honing...with my face. This might or might not be your problem (for example, they tell me that coticules do not raise a burr) but backhoning might be worth a try just to see if it does eliminate your bedding-in period.