What's New?
ShavingUniverse.com

Register a free account now!

If you are registered, you get access to the members only section, can participate in the buy & sell second hand forum and last but not least you can reserve your preferred username before someone else takes it.

Second honing attempt

Thanks once again for all the great replies. You guys are invaluable!

Bart's suggestion about that the middle part might get lowered into the edge of the stone sounds very likely. I have been making sure that the blade stays fairly straight (perpendicular to the stone) during my strokes and I have been watching the water front every now and then to check that I'm not "cheating". But I can easily imagine that the weight of the blade got shifted towards the edge at the ends of the x-strokes.

I'll run through it all again (probably many, many times) and try to remember to bring my razor in to my lab and use the nice microscopes there and see what's going on. It would be nice to have some "real" use of all the nice research equipment :D
 
mikromicke, I believe you are almost there, keep up the good work Sir :thumbup:

DJKELLY said:
Dammit, Ralfson, you futt buckin' sod, you will do it my way!! Oh shit,....never mind,....wrong forum.YYF, Dr., Denny
Click to expand...

Hahaha, now thats one reason I like you so much, ya damn yankee..lol

YEF
Ralfson (Dr)
 
tat2Ralfy said:
mikromicke, I believe you are almost there, keep up the good work Sir :thumbup:

DJKELLY said:
Dammit, Ralfson, you futt buckin' sod, you will do it my way!! Oh shit,....never mind,....wrong forum.YYF, Dr., Denny
Click to expand...

Hahaha, now thats one reason I like you so much, ya damn yankee..lol

YEF
Ralfson (Dr)
Click to expand...
TBH, Ralfson, (Dr. type), when I re-read your post, I see that you also hit your jeans with a couple shots to clean the edge just as I. I stand corrected and humbled by your previous reply. ILU2.

Bart--I might have misread your post also. "Not sure how to bring this..." to me seemed an attempt to smooth ruffled fur on my part. I reiterate--I value your experience very highly am I am proud to know so many gentlemen are associated with this site. Your friend, Denny
 
Remember Denny my friend

"We are all pioneers here in our own way"

There is no judgement here as far as I know, and believe me I would know, and no right and wrong ways of doing things, what we do is say "This is what works for me" others may try it and say "yeah me too" or even "I tried it but need help" and lets not forget "Thats all bollocks You need to do this!" ok so the last one is out of line, and not something that gets said by anyone with any credibility here hahaha.

Regards
Ralfson (Dr) YEF
 
I'll remember, Doc. Bottom line, we are mostly a bunch of nuts who understand each other's nuttiness. I like it here for the vast majority of time I have spent here. A huge diversity, but many, many gentlemen. YYP, Denny
 
DJKELLY said:
Bart--I might have misread your post also. "Not sure how to bring this..." to me seemed an attempt to smooth ruffled fur on my part. I reiterate--I value your experience very highly am I am proud to know so many gentlemen are associated with this site. Your friend, Denny
Click to expand...

Dennis, "not sure how to bring this", just meant that I was not sure how to write my own advice, without giving the previous posters the idea that I completely disagreed.

But I'm not in the smoothing ruffled fur business.:D There is generally little to read between my lines of text, because I am in the habit of calling it as I see it.

And I see a true gentlemen in you, with the inclination to search his own way in the things that he finds worthwhile doing. That is a quality I value highly in a person. And it is the last thing I would want to discourage, in my capacity of associate of this website. That is why I was "not sure how to bring that first message".

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
I think we all deserve a group hug... Ah

And anyone who doesn't agree should receive a swift kick in the knackers! Bwhahaha Bwhahaha

Regards
Ralfson (Dr)
 
tat2Ralfy said:
I think we all deserve a group hug... Ah

And anyone who doesn't agree should receive a swift kick in the knackers! Bwhahaha Bwhahaha

Regards
Ralfson (Dr)
Click to expand...
Too tight, I just farted. Farts have lumps, right?
 
DJKELLY said:
Too tight, I just farted. Farts have lumps, right?
Click to expand...
:rolleyes:
The gents at coticule.be: I think he's got it. I think he's got it!

Me: The rain in spain stays ... eeeh ... but I actually think I've, at least partly got it. I took the razor back to the taped stage of the unicot today and did some passes on just water to see and hear if my strokes were strange. I couldn't see anything really strange and the razor still didn't pass the HHT on most of the blade. I then did something that might be totally wrong but I increased the pressure on the razor. After 20 x-strokes I tested the HHT again and noticed that the zones that pass the test were larger. I went back and did 50 x-strokes with some pressure and after that more or less the entire blade was a HHT 4!

I'm guessing that I was so afraid of putting too much pressure on the blade that I've had it sliding along on a water cushion without making good contact with the stone. When I increased the pressure I also got some feedback from the stone which I didn't get before.

Good? Bad? OK?
 
Good results? Adverse effects? If the answer to the first is "Yes" and the second "No", I'd have to say it's unequivocally good. Right?
 
Smash up job, ol' chap!

These guys kept tellin' me and tellin' me: "don't be scared to use a little pressure". I'm embarrassed to tell you how long it took me to really buy into it and work the blade a bit. Once I did though, I never looked back. I'd spent so long trying to get the lightest smoothest stroke you could ever imagine, when I switched to coticule honing I had a hard time breaking that habit.

Cheers,
-Chris
 
mikromicke said:
I'm guessing that I was so afraid of putting too much pressure on the blade that I've had it sliding along on a water cushion without making good contact with the stone. When I increased the pressure I also got some feedback from the stone which I didn't get before.

Good? Bad? OK?
Click to expand...
Excellent!
If I understand it, you didn't went back to the start, but only re-taped the spine to do more laps on water, right?
If so, that's perfectly fine. I always have some pressure going, except during my last 30 laps or so. And except for the taped stages of Unicot... Probably your secondary bevel didn't became keen enough during your first attempt, for whatever reason. Once formed, it just behaves like finishing a Dilucot, hence some pressure is ok, because the bevel has some "landing zone". But immediately after taping, the edge rests solely on its tip. Without "landing zone", your really have to go easy on the pressure.
A commonly made mistake with Unicot is making the slurry for the first taped step too thick. It really should only be a hint of slurry, and one must fight the urge to do more laps than stated. Certainly when the Coticule is a fast cutter, the secondary bevel can grow too large and loose it's special advantage of responding so well to the final step with only water. If the slurry is a bit thick, that will even happen faster, and the increased slurry dulling of thicker slurry demands even more work during that final step. But even if Unicot fails for these reasons, finishing with a bit more pressure has the power to make it all up.

Great work! You may bounce between success and failure for a couple more times, but in general, it'll only get better.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
I went back and redid the entire unicot, this time keeping Bart's last advice in mind. I got a 2-3 on the HHT on the entire edge after the last pass and after stropping, the entire blade was a 4. I had a very nice shave with it tonight and am happy that I now seem to be able to put a shaveable edge to my razor :w00t:

Thanks again for all help!

Dilucot next ... after a few more successful unicots though ;)
 
mikromicke said:
I went back and redid the entire unicot, this time keeping Bart's last advice in mind. I got a 2-3 on the HHT on the entire edge after the last pass and after stropping, the entire blade was a 4. I had a very nice shave with it tonight and am happy that I now seem to be able to put a shaveable edge to my razor :w00t:

Thanks again for all help!

Dilucot next ... after a few more successful unicots though ;)
Click to expand...

Wonderful :thumbup:

A job well done, good show old chap

Regards
Ralfson (Dr)
 
mikromicke said:
.... I had a very nice shave with it tonight and am happy that I now seem to be able to put a shaveable edge to my razor :w00t:
Click to expand...
Congratulations - Nice feeling, ain't it? :thumbup:
 
mikromicke said:
I went back and redid the entire unicot, this time keeping Bart's last advice in mind. I got a 2-3 on the HHT on the entire edge after the last pass and after stropping, the entire blade was a 4. I had a very nice shave with it tonight and am happy that I now seem to be able to put a shaveable edge to my razor :w00t:

Thanks again for all help!

Dilucot next ... after a few more successful unicots though ;)
Click to expand...
Your early experiences aren't too dissimilar to mine and it's great to see you doing well.
Don't be put off with any set backs you may have with dilucot.

Bart's words are accurate about initial attempts;

Bart said:
You may bounce between success and failure for a couple more times, but in general, it'll only get better
Click to expand...
And I found getting back to the basics, simple things like concentrating on strokes etc. did me a world of good when things don't go quite to plan.
Keep at it because it really does get better. :sleep:
 
Set the bevel, set the bevel and oh, yeah, SET THE BEVEL. When properly done, the rest is much easier. Cheers, Denny
 
Congratulation,
UNICOT was quite straight forward for me because you just have to follow strictly the procedure and this method seems to be less dependant of your stropping skillness and X-stroke technique.
But for Dilucot, I have to improve my X-stroke and stropping technique and getting back also to the basics (doing X-stokes exercices, reading more thoroughly the articles of the sharpening academy...) and my Dilucot edges are not as good as the UNICOT one but they became closer.

Bart said:
But I'll tell you all a secret (only discovered it for the purpose of this typing this post): Take a razor that you know passes the HHT well. Confirm it. Put what's left of the hair aside for a while. Take a glass. Run the razor once, edge down with its own weight over the surface of the glass. Confirm that you no longer can shave arm hair with it. Confirm that the hair no longer shows any response. Strop the razor 60 linen/60 leather. Take your HHT hair and test again. Watch that dropping jaw. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I have tried, then 60 linen and 80 leather but my edge was only HHT 0. To go back to the previous DILUCOT edge I had to do 30 X-strokes on BBW with one rub of slurry stone and about 200 X-strokes on plain water on coticule then 60 linen/ 60 leather.
so either I still have to improve my stropping technique:blush:
or maybe Bart made a joke :D

Regards

Laurent
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top