Hi Folks,
I have been here on this site for some time, doing a lot of reading, but this is my first post. Recently I bought a BBW after reading good things about it here. I did not want to invest a lot into hones, as I was not sure I can stick to straight razor saving as the shaves were not that good. (I have a Heljestrand that I honed previously with a stone I borrowed from a friend, I don't know what it was). When I got the BBW I started my first honing attempt with great confidence, expecting great results, but it turned out to be more difficult than I thought. I tried everything, thick slurry, thin slurry, forward and back strokes, nothing gave me the edge I was expecting. First problem, I am not sure how thin slurry is supposed to be. If I rub the slurry stone once back and forth, it definitely won't give me any colour at all.
After several tries, I found that in my case I seem to get better results with honing only on water. Even if I rub the slurry stone once back and forth, I got some faint grinding sound when I do the strokes. If I switch to water that sound goes away after a while, and the sound becomes very smooth. I also noticed that if I do only stropping strokes, the edge seems to accumulate some imperfections that can be spotted visually under light. They are barely noticeable microscopic burs or teeths. Can this be right, or am I only imagining it? There must be a reason that the standard stroke is edge leading. I decided to mix forward and backward strokes, and at the end I got a much better edge than before. I also did a lot of stokes (around 200-300), so it might be that the BBW just needs more work, and I was not persistent before.
Anyway, I wished to thank you for all the great info on this site,
Norbert
I have been here on this site for some time, doing a lot of reading, but this is my first post. Recently I bought a BBW after reading good things about it here. I did not want to invest a lot into hones, as I was not sure I can stick to straight razor saving as the shaves were not that good. (I have a Heljestrand that I honed previously with a stone I borrowed from a friend, I don't know what it was). When I got the BBW I started my first honing attempt with great confidence, expecting great results, but it turned out to be more difficult than I thought. I tried everything, thick slurry, thin slurry, forward and back strokes, nothing gave me the edge I was expecting. First problem, I am not sure how thin slurry is supposed to be. If I rub the slurry stone once back and forth, it definitely won't give me any colour at all.
After several tries, I found that in my case I seem to get better results with honing only on water. Even if I rub the slurry stone once back and forth, I got some faint grinding sound when I do the strokes. If I switch to water that sound goes away after a while, and the sound becomes very smooth. I also noticed that if I do only stropping strokes, the edge seems to accumulate some imperfections that can be spotted visually under light. They are barely noticeable microscopic burs or teeths. Can this be right, or am I only imagining it? There must be a reason that the standard stroke is edge leading. I decided to mix forward and backward strokes, and at the end I got a much better edge than before. I also did a lot of stokes (around 200-300), so it might be that the BBW just needs more work, and I was not persistent before.
Anyway, I wished to thank you for all the great info on this site,
Norbert