OP
- Joined
- Monday February 23, 2015
- Location
- Rebublic of Scotland
- Thread Starter
- #193
I Don't Know who gave you that Advice but its Way off the Mark..I have been Honing these Blades for sometime Now..I sent my Friend One that I Honed & he said its Sharper & Smoother than the One he Got Honed from a Honemeister..As I said..One Layer of Tape..The Tape is only there to Protect the Spine from Hone Wear..You Don't Need it..I only Use a Decent Thin Cello Tape as Well..My first attempt was with a piece of tape but I was doing more harm than good.
View attachment 18866
A honemeister (based on that same picture) recommended to look for the for the original angle on the bevel and to find a way of making a guide for it. So I used the blade holder for stropping that comes with the set.
View attachment 18867
As you can see, the razor handle acts as the stropping handle, but IMO its too heavy and bulky for honing and stropping.
So I used the holder only. That alone improved my honing tremendously. It also made sense to me since I will be stropping using that blade holder so honing with it should give the bevel a similar angle to what it will get when stropping. I inked the bevel to guided the honing.
View attachment 18868
That holder is covered in tape on the chopstick handle picture (so I missed to mention that). After honing without a handle I felt the need for one for the x strokes and then the rolling strokes. I used the original handle and did not like it but did notice I liked how it felt better than no handle, so I replaced it with the chopstick. After that I used this approach with another dull blade start to finish and its working better for me.
To make pressure when setting the bevel I put my index finger on top of the blade, similar to what I've seen on straight honing videos (or so I like to think). No flexing issues and in fact I get better results with the chopstick than with the original handle or the blade holder alone.
This are my first honing steps and am sure this approach can and will get improved. Right now am already getting better shaves than with a GEM blade; quite encouraging.
The Blade Needs to be Flat on the Stone the Same as an SR..That's it..
Billy
Last edited: