Thread: My First attempt at honing - Advice needed.

Hi Guys, i need a little advice on honing my razors for the first time.

I have a Belgium Blue and a 12K stone both purchased from TheInsvisibleEdge. now i have played around with a cheap ebay razor to get some practice in but now the time is leading to the big event im getting a little worried about killing my razors edge all together.

Could someone suggest a good use for both of these stones to get a good shavable edge back on my razors??

Im more than happy to pay to have them rehoned if needed, but would like to have ago myself incase it turns out its something i can do


Thanks
Kris

How is the razors edge just now? is it just needing a touch up?
If you got it from the invisible edge, I'm guessing its a chinese 12k you have? as it'll manage to bring back the edge fine if your razor's just pulling a little.

10-30 light x strokes - need to be light strokes, but still make sure the edge is actually touching the hone, if its not touching the hone, you can go as light as you want you won't get any sharper - on the chinese stone and see how it cuts your arm or leg hair above skin level and if it cuts easily above skin level, give it a shave test.

I would leave the BBW just now, I have two and one can be used with water to get keenness, the other needs slurry as it just softens the edge up, not adding any keenness at all.

and take it slow, make sure the blades spine and edge are super flat to the hone and your good to go.

good luck, Alex

Originally Posted by justalex

How is the razors edge just now? is it just needing a touch up?
If you got it from the invisible edge, I'm guessing its a chinese 12k you have? as it'll manage to bring back the edge fine if your razor's just pulling a little.

10-30 light x strokes - need to be light strokes, but still make sure the edge is actually touching the hone, if its not touching the hone, you can go as light as you want you won't get any sharper - on the chinese stone and see how it cuts your arm or leg hair above skin level and if it cuts easily above skin level, give it a shave test.

I would leave the BBW just now, I have two and one can be used with water to get keenness, the other needs slurry as it just softens the edge up, not adding any keenness at all.

and take it slow, make sure the blades spine and edge are super flat to the hone and your good to go.

good luck, Alex

Hi thanks for the reply, the edge at the moment shaves fairly well I have just noticed its not as keen as it was when I first had the razors. They do start to pull a little if im not super accurate with my angles and stroke across my face, so i figured it would be about time to get them sharpened again.

Plus I have had them both a year now and apart from stropping they have not been sharpened since i had them

again thanks for the advice im going to give it ago on the weekend when i get some quite time, i will drop a reply on here and let you know how i get on.

Kris

I agree that light strokes on a C12K will be fine as far as touching up an edge is concerned. Use that cheap ebay razor to practice keeping the blade flat on the stone and developing a light touch.

In general, I'd advise to lay aside one or two razors aside for honing practice (depending on the number of razors you have) so you'll develop muscle memory for the strokes. Some people over at coticule.be have developed a method (which was the subject of some debate here at SRP) to get a shaving edge off a BBW, but that's more of a thing to try out when you're sure of your skills.

Maybe for practice and touch ups it would be wiser to first stick with the C12K.

ok so to post an update, i gave one of my razors 20 passes on the C12k stone on the weekend and in terms of shavability its not made much of a difference, i went lightly and slowly, in x patterns across the stone. my Invisibleedge razor really needs to be sharpened as i tried shaving with it last night and it was really bad, tugging, pulling and missing hairs.

is it worth me having another go with the c12k stone but say another 20 laps or should i be looking at other alternatives?

I really would like to try and sharpen them myself for the practice, sense of accomplishment from sharpening them and knowing i could do it if needed. but dont get me wrong i am more than willing to pay to have them done if i dont have the kit to-do them myself yet.

I have absolutely no honing experience, but I've read many times on SRP's forum that the Chinee 12k was a very very slow cutter. People were speaking of 50, 80, 100+ strokes. Assuming your C12k is like many of the others out there, then you may want to keep going a bit...

find gssixguns and lynns youtube videos (I think they can be found in the WIKI) then watch and learn

ok so heres a weekend update, sat down tonight and worked on my invisible edge straight razor, now in terms of shaving this one had got to the point it was more of a wax strip straight than a razor anymore and it did its best to make me want to cry when using it.

so i figured it might be time for a go at sharpening it, im not even sure how many passes i gave it on my c12k stone, enough to give me RSI i think, but it now shaves again !!! i was expecting to either stuff it up worse than it was or do something that would end up damaging my poor razor but with patience and a lot of passes on the stone its now back to a standard i would class as shave worthy. its no where near what some of you would proberbly class as shave ready knowing how precise you can be but to me it gives a good clean shave

thanks for all the advice and help guys its really be appreciated, im going to try n get a cheap ebay win so i can just practice and practice on it with my BB and the 12k stone for future honing attempts.

It would be hard, I think, to overdo a C12k. Use as many strokes as you like or need on that. You an also try light strokes on your C12k dry. Sometimes that refines an edge just a little more.