Straight razor genral info?

[Lord Fatboy]

Article on edge geometry -

"In this article, I will try to explain the characteristics of a razor’s edge geometry. For cutting tools of all kinds, edge geometry is hugely important. The wrong geometry will always result in very poor performance of any and all cutting tools.

The four elements of a cutting edge that must all work together for optimum performance at any given (coldwork) task are:

Hardness
Toughness
Abrasion resistance
Edge Geometry

Razors are “push cutting” tools. Other types of cutting edge tools may use other methods of cutting such as slicing, scoring and gouging. All these methods applied to different materials are best suited to different edge geometries. Scissors, razors and serrated bread knives all are very, very different in geometry because of the mechanical properties they need to be ideal for the task they’re designed to perform. And, of course, those properties make them rather unsuitable for other applications. Scissors and bread knives would perform poorly for push cutting beard stubble and hair from skin with minimal damage to skin and close, clean reliable cutting on the hair.

So, we’ll focus on razor geometry here.

And that has to start with an understanding of the task at hand. We want to cut hair from the face at or below the level of the skin on the follicle. The goal is to clear the skin of all hair doing it very close, very comfortable and with little or no damage of any sort to the skin, itself, in the process but mechanically cutting/shearing it.

Additionally, what we want out of the tool is very good edge retention so we spend much more time shaving than honing, stropping and maintaining it. This is an important consideration.

So what is a great geometry for this?

First and foremost, we need an edge with as close to zero radius as possible; no rounding or flat spots at all. This enables it to start cutting with very little pressure. The smaller the radius of the tip of the edge, the greater the shear force exerted in the smallest possible area. This enables the edge to penetrate and begin shearing very quickly and very easily. The edge must, however, widen at an angle sufficient to provide support for that cutting edge so that it doesn’t fail and deform during the cutting. The angle of the bevel on a razor blade provides this geometry. If it is too obtuse, it will not cut as easily. If it is too acute, it will fail while cutting or at the very least will not maintain it’s proper geometry for long. Generally, a bevel of around 14 to 18 degrees will be very good for this.

So, how do we know what the bevel angle really is? There’s an easy way to tell. Proper edge geometry for a razor is set by the maker and consists of a blade width that is 4 times the size of the spine width where the spine contacts the blade and the edge contacts a hone. An 8/8 razor should have approximately a 1/4? width spine. Slightly thicker or slightly thinner would be OK but it shouldn’t vary considerably from the 4:1 ratio if the blade has good geometry; say somewhere between 4.2:1 and 3.7 to 1.



So that’s the edge geometry of a razor. Understanding this helps us understand how to hone to maintain this geometry, particularly at the very fine edge."

 

[Lord Fatboy]

Article - honing primer:

"One of the really neat features about the classic straight razor design is that the manufacturers actually set the correct bevel angle for you by creating their razors with approximately a 4:1 blade width to spine thickness ratio that makes the spine of the razor a honing guide for a bevel of approximately 14 to 18 degrees (usually).

This means that laying the razor flat on a hone creates a perfect bevel. This was an ingenious feature when it first became standard and it still is. The most difficult part of honing a knife or almost any other cutting tool is keeping the blade at the correct angle to the hone in order to create the proper edge geometry. By hand, that is very difficult, indeed, and there are countless “honing guides” created to help someone accomplish this with everything from hunting knives to scissors. But with razors, the honing guide is built right into it!

So, always, always, always keep the razor completely flush to a hone when honing the edge. The spine should literally ALWAYS be laid on the hone with full contact any time the edge of the razor touches the stone. If you touch the edge of a razor to a hone without the spine touching, you probably did some level of damage to the edge. This is critically important and should be your very first rule of razor honing. No part of the razor should ever touch a hone unless the spine is already in solid contact.

Hones shape steel through abrasion. Individual grains of abrasive imbedded in or integral to the hone have a crystalline structure that scrapes very small amounts of metal from a blade as the blade is passed across the crystal. If you understand the way a rasp or sandpaper block works on wood then you understand how a hone works on steel. It’s the very same mechanism of abrasion at work.

When sanding wood, coarser sandpaper removes more wood and makes deeper scratches in the wood than finer sandpaper does. You might want to shape your wood with an 80 grit paper. But it won’t leave a very nice finish behind when the wood is shaped. So then you would use finer and finer grits of sandpaper to remove the marks left by the previous sanding with coarser grits. You would continue with finer grits until you have a finish as smooth as you want to have. The coarser the grit, the faster the cutting and the rougher the finish. The finer the grit, the slower the cutting and the finer the finish. Hones and sandpaper…. for all intents and purposes, the same thing in a different form for slightly different work.

To choose the right hone for the job, you have to evaluate the condition of the edge of the razor. If it’s got damage and chips or flattening, you need to create a brand new bevel and a coarser hone of 600 to 1200 grit would work well for that. It will remove the steel rather quickly and abrade away the edge until a new bevel is created. Laying the razor flat on the hone, you slide it across the hone edge first. Make sure the spine is touching the hone the whole time and, of course, make sure the edge is in solid contact, too. If the spine isn’t making contact, your bevel won’t be right. If the edge doesn’t make contact, you’re not doing anything but grinding away your spine.

You will want to remove steel evenly from both sides of the edge in this way with several strokes on one side and matching strokes on the other. You want to apply even and very light pressure to the hone. You should feel it “draw” and cut as you slide the edge along it. You want no more pressure on the spine than necessary. You’re not trying to grind down the spine. That’s just your guide. The real purpose of honing is to shape the edge of the blade, so that’s where the most firm contact should be. It should never be enough pressure to flex the blade even a little bit. Light, steady pressure and strokes gets it done. With experience, you’ll figure out how much pressure you can apply and still get good results.

Once you have achieved a clean bevel on the blade and you’ve got freshly honed steel on both sides of the edge along the bevel meeting precisely with zero radius and zero flatness on the edge, you’re ready to refine the edge. At this point, the razor is already dangerously sharp, but the edge will be still rather jagged with microserrations from the coarser hone. This step, of course, can be completely skipped if the bevel is quite good on the razor. You always want to use the finest grit capable of doing the job with a reasonable amount of effort and time. An edge touchup is always done on a fine hone (8000 grit or maybe more). Only the creation of the initial bevel should be done with anything coarser than that. 600 grit, for example, would be good for a razor that needs some really serious work with microchips and very visible edge deformity where a completely new edge geometry must be ground into it.

Once your blade is sharp, then it’s time to refine the edge with finer grit hones that grind away the tops of the peaks created by the coarser hone as the scratch pattern generated a series of peaks and valleys along the edge at a miscroscopic level. This is the purpose of finer hones – always to grind away the tops of those ridges until all deep scratches are eliminated by grinding away everything above them.

The final goal is to arrive at an edge geometry that is very consistent, has no visible scratches, has zero radius in the bevel and appears polished to the naked eye. If you can see scratches along the bevel with your naked eye, it’s not fine enough to be a good, comfortable shaver.

So, to recap.

Always step up from coarser hones to finer hones once the bevel is established.

Go back to coarser hones, only if you realize you didn’t get the bevel completely reset yet.

Always keep the spine of the razor touching a hone when the blade or any other part of the razor touches the hone.

Make smooth strokes, edge leading, alternating sides of the razor to keep the grinding even.

Once you’ve got a solid and consistent scratch pattern along the entire bevel with the hone you’re using (and the bevel is completely formed and very sharp), it’s time to go to a finer hone.

About hones:

There are diamond hones, waterhones and oil hones.

All CAN be used dry, but none are at their best dry.

Waterhones are, in my opinion, the best choice for razor honing. Diamond hones are excellent for grinding new bevels. Both of these require water (according to directions) for best results. Diamond hones are often advertised to be used wet or dry, but use them wet. Dry them after you’re done. They’ll work better and last longer.

Barber hones come in a variety of fine grits and I like them a lot. They’re inexpensive enough to pick up a few for your collection and if you use them much, you’ll probably like them. Unlike water hones, they don’t wear away quickly and can be slower cutting because of that. But they need a lot less maintenance and generally create a rather highly polished bevel because of their grit structure. I like using a mixture of water with a good dose of dish washing soap in it. The soap cleans and lubricates the hone as you use it. It will cut much quicker and finish much nicer with this cheap lube method.

Natural stones are great but very expensive. These would not be my recommendation as the first hones for anyone to buy and use, but I like them and they’re really nice to have and use. So, it’s really up to your budget whether you want to plunk the money down for them. If you can afford them, there’s no reason not to get one or more as you become experienced."

 

[UKRob]

Those two articles basically confirm what Jamie has already posted earlier and I know that Jamie is a firm believer in using tape when honing - as am I. As a rough guide, one layer of tape adds about 0.7 degrees to the inclusive bevel angle so it's not a significant change even if introducing it to a new razor that was honed without tape.

 

[Billyfergie]

View: https://youtu.be/oMchDtXzUO4

This Subject Came Up Over in the Shave Den Just Recently..

Billy

 

[JamieM]

And if you want to keep that perfect bevel geomertry then always tape your spine, Glen's a good friend of mine and someone who given the choice actually he always tapes everything, what he's saying is the choice is yours I always tape and so does Rob in the long run it actually makes sense, only today I had a beautiful old Joseph Rogers in for honing and the last time the razor was honed was by the late Neil Miller, the owner told me that Neil told him that he used 2 layers of tape that made my job so much easier such a easy straight forward job even using tape on a razor that as not had tape makes sense as you form a minute micro bevel which can make quite a difference.

 

[Lord Fatboy]

Wow. This is actually blowing my mind - so far I've been told (elsewhere) "No tape ! On a new or used razor, metal must be removed from edge & spine at equal rates. If you must use tape, use the thinnest tape possible - Scotch over standard electrical" -

The first part never made any sense to me, unless it was badly warped (but what do I know?). My four "non-practice" razors I've asked the previous owners if they used tape or not, so when I came to touch ups, I could / would not use it too. I got these answers:

Gold Dollar:
"I do not use tape on the gold dollars. The bevel angle on them is a bit wide so it's best to reduce the angle without tape.

Azuma:
If you see any spine wear (Yes), I didn't use tape .

Geo. Worstenholm & Son

I used one layer just to protect from honeware. One layer doesn't make any difference but I use it "just incase". I feel like there is no real difference between honing with one layer of tape or without tape at all."

Gong:

No answer.

So far - for practice & pressure & etc - I've just been bevel setting on ZYs & GDs so: Lapping the stone (Naniwa 1k) killing the edge, setting the bevel, lapping the stone, killing the edge, setting the bevel again and again. I haven't been using tape when bevel setting my GDs or ZYs, based on the above advice. Did I do wrong? Should I use it from now on?

 

[JamieM]

Wow. This is actually blowing my mind - so far I've been told (elsewhere) "No tape ! On a new or used razor, metal must be removed from edge & spine at equal rates. If you must use tape, use the thinnest tape possible - Scotch over standard electrical" -

The first part never made any sense to me, unless it was badly warped (but what do I know?). My four "non-practice" razors I've asked the previous owners if they used tape or not, so when I came to touch ups, I could / would not use it too. I got these answers:

Gold Dollar:
"I do not use tape on the gold dollars. The bevel angle on them is a bit wide so it's best to reduce the angle without tape.

Azuma:
If you see any spine wear (Yes), I didn't use tape .

Geo. Worstenholm & Son

I used one layer just to protect from honeware. One layer doesn't make any difference but I use it "just incase". I feel like there is no real difference between honing with one layer of tape or without tape at all."

Gong:

No answer.

So far - for practice & pressure & etc - I've just been bevel setting on ZYs & GDs so: Lapping the stone (Naniwa 1k) killing the edge, setting the bevel, lapping the stone, killing the edge, setting the bevel again and again. I haven't been using tape when bevel setting my GDs or ZYs, based on the above advice. Did I do wrong? Should I use it from now on?

It's a pity you live so far away otherwise you could drop by and I could give you a hands on lesson.

 

[Lord Fatboy]

View: https://youtu.be/oMchDtXzUO4

This Subject Came Up Over in the Shave Den Just Recently..

Billy

Great stuff. That was good for my confidence

 

[Lord Fatboy]

It's a pity you live so far away otherwise you could drop by and I could give you a hands on lesson.

Yeah, I know, it's a shame, but at least we're able to talk about it here. I am getting bevels set 'til they pop hairs and have a neat(ish) scratch pattern - It's just more a confidence factor, "am I really doing what is required". I'll get it (I hope )

 

[UKRob]

Wow. This is actually blowing my mind - so far I've been told (elsewhere) "No tape ! On a new or used razor, metal must be removed from edge & spine at equal rates. If you must use tape, use the thinnest tape possible - Scotch over standard electrical" -

The first part never made any sense to me, unless it was badly warped (but what do I know?). My four "non-practice" razors I've asked the previous owners if they used tape or not, so when I came to touch ups, I could / would not use it too. I got these answers:

Gold Dollar:
"I do not use tape on the gold dollars. The bevel angle on them is a bit wide so it's best to reduce the angle without tape.

Azuma:
If you see any spine wear (Yes), I didn't use tape .

Geo. Worstenholm & Son

I used one layer just to protect from honeware. One layer doesn't make any difference but I use it "just incase". I feel like there is no real difference between honing with one layer of tape or without tape at all."

Gong:

No answer.

So far - for practice & pressure & etc - I've just been bevel setting on ZYs & GDs so: Lapping the stone (Naniwa 1k) killing the edge, setting the bevel, lapping the stone, killing the edge, setting the bevel again and again. I haven't been using tape when bevel setting my GDs or ZYs, based on the above advice. Did I do wrong? Should I use it from now on?

The quote about GDs does not make sense - if the bevel is already wide, not using tape will make it wider.

As for the quote that spine and bevel should wear at the same rate - well I consider that to be nonsense. If you consider the angle that the spine sits on a hone, it's obvious (at least to me) that more steel will be lost from the spine than from the very edge - consequently you are altering the geometry of the razor and making it more difficult to set the bevel correctly.

 

[Billyfergie]

Yeah, I know, it's a shame, but at least we're able to talk about it here. I am getting bevels set 'til they pop hairs and have a neat(ish) scratch pattern - It's just more a confidence factor, "am I really doing what is required". I'll get it (I hope )

The quote about GDs does not make sense - if the bevel is already wide, not using tape will make it wider.

As for the quote that spine and bevel should wear at the same rate - well I consider that to be nonsense. If you consider the angle that the spine sits on a hone, it's obvious (at least to me) that more steel will be lost from the spine than from the very edge - consequently you are altering the geometry of the razor and making it more difficult to set the bevel correctly.

That's My Observation's as Well Rob..

Billy

 

[JamieM]

The quote about GDs does not make sense - if the bevel is already wide, not using tape will make it wider.

As for the quote that spine and bevel should wear at the same rate - well I consider that to be nonsense. If you consider the angle that the spine sits on a hone, it's obvious (at least to me) that more steel will be lost from the spine than from the very edge - consequently you are altering the geometry of the razor and making it more difficult to set the bevel correctly.

Rob's absolutely correct you can't argue with experience after all we just want to help out, after all using and maintaining a straight razor is hardly going to catch on enjoy your small selective choice of removing hair from your face.

 

[Lord Fatboy]

Rob's absolutely correct you can't argue with experience after all we just want to help out, after all using and maintaining a straight razor is hardly going to catch on enjoy your small selective choice of removing hair from your face.

You've all been brilliant, and I've learned more from this thread in the past few days than I have in a month of reading elsewhere.

You're right - Y'know what, Although I really enjoy it so far, I think I'm gonna cool it on the honing for a month or six weeks, and just enjoy the shaving. I got two *really* nice razors for my birthday, and I'm not giving them the time they deserve - I've had ZYs & GDs in my hand longer than I've had the other two to my face.

How am I gonna know what good honing is, what good finishing is, if I don't even know good straight shaving.

 

[Lord Fatboy]

I must've looked at this chart maybe 3 times a day for the last 3-4 months. I'm only now beginning to be able to tell half, full and extra hollow apart. Most of the 5-10 quid razors I've bought on eebei are near wedges, quarter or half hollows.

 

[R181]

Late to this thread and just had a quick read.

Bellied hollow blades are not nearly as rare as some would think. out of the 30-40 razors in my rotation quite a number are bellied hollows, 6-8 iirc. They can be hard to spot by eye. Most of my bellied hollows are Solingen or US made with 1 Sheffie in the mix.

As grinding methods improved there was a move away from near wedges to more hollow grinds as the more hollow grinds were/are easier to hone and maintain. All the different grinds will shave well if you can put a decent edge on them. It is personal preference as to which you find you like and works best. The heavier the grind the more silent the shave. Me, I like the scraping toast sound a very hollow blade makes while shaving.

Using or not using a taped spine is an endless discussion with no general consensus which is better. Personally, I always use tape because it does no harm and can be necessary on razors with excessive hone to get the blade geometry back with in spec, that is plus or minus 2 degrees either side of a 17 degree bevel angle, iirc.

Bob