Thread: Microbevels with the Shapton 30000

Originally Posted by northpaw

3rd shave:

I went with an extremely shallow angle and held the razor ever so lightly, and the darned thing cut so well that I skipped the XTG pass entirely, getting a near-perfect shave in record time. Had an extra pass's worth of lather just sitting there in the bowl at the end.

If you have not figured out what Adam has stated about the angle, take note at what a relatively new honer brings to SRP. If you read between the lines. (I am sure that master honers that "are still learning" always do.) If you are "living on the sharp side of town" KEEP THE ANGLE LOW. Adam great observation and thank you for sharing, this is paramount to getting a smooth shave with this bevel finish, if you do otherwise, do so at your own risk.
Mike

4th shave:

Before shaving, I'm only doing 12 passes on the strop with this edge. Don't ask my why I settled on that number. All I can say is that over the last year+ of using the same strop, I started being able to get a sense of when a razor is ready from the feedback, and this one is there after about 12 strokes.

Another great shave, possibly better than the last. Shame I don't have a board meeting today or something. It's usually a little bit of a gamble for me to go for BBS on several consecutive days, but I got it today with absolutely zero redness afterwards. To put that into perspective, I have extremely sensitive skin* to the degree that I can get "razorburn" just from face-lathering if I'm not careful, so this is a pretty big deal for me.

Miscellaneous info to make these reports more interesting, haha:

soap: face lathered with Speick shave stick
aftershave: Proraso Pre-Post
wife: "Wow!"




*not kidding about the sensitive part. I often have red fingerprints on my cheekbones at the end of the shave left over from gently stretching the skin.

I'm not crazy about microbevels as they don't seem to have the support of the steel behind them to last very long. I'm going to try this though and will let you know the result.

Howard

Hmmm... This micro bevel business sound remarkably like the secondary bevel of yesterday. While it may be narrow it actually increases the bevel angle, so even with its small dimension in one aspect, it could possibly be a macro bevel - considering its greater included angle.

Originally Posted by Bruce

Hmmm... This micro bevel business sound remarkably like the secondary bevel of yesterday. While it may be narrow it actually increases the bevel angle, so even with its small dimension in one aspect, it could possibly be a macro bevel - considering its greater included angle.

Is that like you say potahto and I say potayto ? (If you ain't old you won't get the joke)

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Is that like you say potahto and I say potayto ? (If you ain't old you won't get the joke)

Do you guys remember "Get Smart"? How about renaming the post like this: "Hey Chief, Would you believe Mini Secondary Bevel Refinement Utilizing The State of The Art Model 30000 Grit Shapton Glass Stone And A Single Piece Of Tape Trick, As An Alternative To Pastes Method TricK"
Mikey aka Agent 87

Over a week on my Challenge razor. The edge is holding up well. No signs of deterioration from chipping or distortion under 100x mag. The shave is really good and feels smooth and effortless one week later.
Have a great week.
Mike

I had an interesting conversation with the man who makes my reed knives about the bevel angles on a razor. It made me think of this thread, and I posted about it here in my blog.

Basically, the whole thing revolved around him saying that his knife making was done on a more philosophical approach, and therefore the optimum edge angle would be determined by that - not by "the math". I wish I could be more exact about that statement, but that's pretty much how it translated.

Back on the SRP....

it seems we have a difference of opinion between what is a micro bevel, and what is a secondary bevel. I think the difference boils down to your philosophic outlook on sharpening.

IMO, Kingfish established a micro bevel because it is an edge that was made on the final stone at a raised angle with minimal passes after his bevel was well established and refined enough to shave with as it was.

OTOH, what I did in my blog was make a secondary bevel because I purposely set a new edge bevel at the taped angle and worked that bevel up through the sharpening progression. The original bevel was almost shave worthy, but was never intended to be the final edge. (My actions were a result of the conversation with the knife maker.)

Different? I think yes, but only because of the defined context.

I think this idea of a micro bevel is still worthy to investigate because it will all boil down to finding the best optimal angle for a razor, which may just happen to be that micro bevel angle....

Just thinking.....

I apologize for my tardiness. I have just this morning decided to give this technique a try with two razors I have just tuned up:

1. Joseph Elliott Hamburg Ring
2. Spokane Barber Supply Magno-Electric

I chose these two because they seem to be a pair of problem children. They both shaped up very nicely, very quickly. Icedog approves of this method.

stiffness change is cubic to thickness change, we use microbevels to make an edge stronger and resist chipping/deformation