High Grit Stone - Waste of $

IBL. Cliff is probably reading this and laughing, and that's not funny...
Russ
shut this down please Mods!!!
 
sovernstrength said:
I just think 99% of blades do not require a ridiculous $200 2000+ grit stone when I can shave all day with a couple sweeps on the strop. My finest stone before strop is 1000 grit ceramic.

I just can't see any justification in a high grit stone.
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Can you shave your face comfortably directly off your 1000 grit stone? I'd wager that you cannot, along with likely anybody who has been known to use a straight razor to shave daily.
 
ToddS said:
If you finish with pasted strops, you do not need stones beyond 1k.
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Whoo, is not easy to get all the scratches out from a 1k stone using a pasted strop without rounding the edge over. Even off my Washboard, the edge has to be taken within striking distance to get a nice high finish and retain the geometry, at least on steels mid 50s RC and up. Kitchen knives at low 50s RC and down can be shortcutted, sport and hunting knives generally can not.

Referring back to my earlier diagram, the higher trough shoulders get worn away first and the edge will surely round to some extent, especially compared to a comparable waterstone. Using a coarse/fine strop sequence really can't stop this effect, only reducing the amount of variance prior to stropping, or using an extremely hard strop surface is good insurance.

The edge will get bright and pressure cut better, but normally the longevity will suffer and the cut qualities won't be as versatile, specially on steels with big carbides. Under close inspection the edge will display obvious curvature across the bevel, and under a loupe you'll see the carbide lumps being excavated from the support steel.

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My waterstones were only £15 each, one 1000/6000 and one 250/1000. My strops cost nothing.
 
I'd say that you don't really need to actually remove the scratches of prior grits when sharpening unless you're going for an enhanced cosmetic appearance to the bevel. The apex itself is what actually matters and most of the time there's enough variation in your stroke (even with many guided systems) to make full removal of scratch patterns unnecessary unless chasing a literal razor-type edge for push cuts.
 
ToddS said:
This is the apex of a straight razor following edge-leading strokes on a Chosera 1k - a triangular bevel with a typical edge width of about 0.7 microns.

cho_1k_x_01.jpg


This is the apex of a straight razor following stropping on a hanging denim strop loaded with Mother's mag polish - micro-convex BELOW the point where the Chosera 1k edge ends. The pre-strop bevel (off the stone) is shown in green. The Chosera 1k edge is shown in blue.

gnv_paste_vs_c1k00.jpg


There are no "scratch-ending-teeth" in either case.

This transition is even more trivial if we do edge-trailing strokes on the 1k stone instead.
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And how many degrees do you estimate you lost off the edge? Keeping in mind this a straight razor with a lot of surface area, a built-in guide, and cementite instead of an EDU cutting tool with 20 micron chromium carbides in the mix and much smaller surface contact area. I wouldn't expect to see scratch ending teeth, but a few smoothed over digs that didn't work out from the strop and a more obtuse edge. If one continues, I'd expect the edge will become increasingly smoothed out and increasingly obtuse.
 
From what I understand, a hanging strop with a straight is one of the better choices for reducing rounding as the spine essentially aligns the strop with the edge and absorbs most of the pressure. Running that across a mounted strop might very well be worse. I honestly don't know as I don't use a hanging strop, just paraphrasing what I've read on the shaving forums.

I would have thought 26 was a bit broad for comfortable shaving, but the bottom line - is the effect any similar if you were to start at 26 on a regular EDU tool? A loss of 10° is considerable. Rounding of 10° on a chisel or plane iron would pretty much have you starting over.

And the last question, using the same strop following a 6k Chosera instead of the 1k, would you not have an even more uniform edge with fewer passes on the strop and perhaps a retained edge closer to 20°?
 
Todd, not to start a fight, but have you had anyone from either of the big shaving forums replicate your results? I have found that every shortcut attempt I've ever made with straights has gone poorly to say the least. Also, the range of "comfortable shave" is so wide as to render it a fairly subjective and therefor useless measure of sharpness. If you can do a clean dry pass and remove all the hair, then we are talking.

But straight razors are OT so lets keep that in mind.
 
I have an eef dmt, and a shapton glass 6000, nothing said in this thread convinces me to discontinue their usage. What I do glean from this thread is that some people get mean when making a point. I am here to have fun, but that is just me.
Russ
 
High grit hones did not exist 150 years ago when the choices were straight razor shaving or grow a beard.
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Um, you might want to think that over a little bit...
 
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