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Razor sharpening .

A shortish blog on sharpening straight razors. It will be short because I know little enough , though I have learned enough to be able to get the job done . Maybe I can return to this in future when I have more information but for the present it will be brief .

1 . If you want to learn to shave using a straight razor the most effective way is to buy a new razor from a dealer who is known for sharpening their razors before sending them out . Buy a strop at the same time , not a terribly expensive one , you can pay an awful lot of money for strops . Don't pay too much because you will likely cut it , if it's not too badly cut sanding it down will make it serviceable again.

Whilst learning to shave save up for two stones one about 7000 grit and one finishing stone 12/15000 grit . these stones will bring your razor back to shave ready when stropping no longer does the job .

A video on how to do this ,

https://youtu.be/cXVW_S6VaBw

2. If you really have no idea about sharpening at all then when your razor needs honing send it off to one of the guy's that will do it for a few bucks . Course you won't have a razor whilst it is gone , you could buy two of course use one and send the other .

3 If you can't sharpen a knife to a reasonable level then perhaps that is the place to start because a razor does need to be sharp a half sharp razor is dangerous .

4 Okay now we have got that out of the way I guess most of us can sharpen and already have some equipment . For a razor you need stones , the various fixed angle sort of things like the Edge Pro etc aren't a great help here . The reason for that is that a razor comes with the angles sorted for you , assuming that we have a good or new razor and not one that has been mangled or botched in some way . So stones needed 1000; 4000, 8000, and a finishing stone 12/15000 .This is a list that could and has been argued about on various forums for ever . If however you have something like this you are good to go. To use these the 1000 only needs to be used once normally when setting the bevel , basically establish a sharp edge with this stone then refine that edge with the other ones . So far so good then simply take your razor and lightly stroke the thing edge leading on the first stone then through the progression strop it for a while and prepare for a marvellous shave .

Well that is it in the proverbial nutshell, but and there are a lot of buts! .It is best to have a jewelers loupe because it is hard to see what you are doing on the edge without .

You need to develop a method of keeping the heel and the point in contact with the stone evenly so as to even out the wear on the razor. This comes down to feel and observation , the loupe again . Course you could buy a USB microscope they are fairly cheap and I have been meaning to buy one for a while . The fear of more information than I have the skill to deal with has so far put me off .

If you have the stones and the loupe or microscope all you really need is to haunt youtube for a while as there are enough video's on there . From my experience try to stick to one or two people as too much information coming from different angles can cause brain ache .Then like any other thing it is a matter of practice and observation .

I did not have all these different stones to start with . What I did have was three Japanese waterstones and a reasonably comprehensive selection of stones to go on the Edge Pro . I hoped to use the Edge Pro and was dismayed to find that it was not going to be a big help . So the stones I had were , well I am not certain there is a course medium and fine , I knew what they were when I bought them but had forgotten and the only writing on them was in Japanese . They were bought a long time ago and had not been used a lot due to not having a PC to learn from youtube ! After spending what for me was a lot on the Edge Pro I was reluctant to buy a whole bunch of stones at $100 each so had to look around for alternatives . I bought a Belgian Bllue stone for say $50 and a Finnish waterstone for a similar amount and to finish of an ILR at $30 . These together with my three japanese stones allow me to sharpen to a degree that at present I am satisfied with , though heaven knows they are a strange collection .

So I have as far as I can tell,

Japanese 600 grit

Japanese 1000 grit

Finnish 3000 grit *

Japanese 5000 grit

Belgian Blue 7000 grit *

Imperia la Rocca 12/15000 grit *

The ones with stars after are natural stones so the grit rating is arbitrary .

If you go online and look at youtube you will very quickly find that there are so many variations some people manage with one Belgian Coticule and vary the slurry to make the stone work as if different grit sizes . Some have a staggering array of stones which must be used in an approved manner ending with a 20000 stone that costs $500 . Then there are others who use a 4000/8000 double sided stone and maybe even one from China . After a while i decided it was best to try to get by on what I had .

I haven't mentioned J'nats yet and have no intention of doing so cos it makes my brain ache to even read about such things .

It all get's to sounding complicated at times but if you remember that you are just putting an edge on a piece of steel it brings you back to earth .

One last point when you have ground your razor against the stones you have the big question comes up "how do I know if it is sharp enough". You can see a bunch of different tests on video's but the one I like , bearing in mind that shaving is the only real test , is run the razor along a hairy part of you with the edge a 1/16 or so away from the skin . See how the hair reacts if it seems to almost leap off and sticks to the razor , my razors are all carbon steel so always have a degree of oil on , If that occurs you have reached the promised land and can lather up . Anything else and it is back to plan two .

I have read this back and can only apologise for making it sound complicated I have loved learning to sharpen my own razors. I am sure there is still a lot to learn and that is okay by me cos I am enjoying the learning . It really is satisfying to buy a razor cheaply from the Bay and sharpen it up for what is likely the first time in 50 , 60 years or more .

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Comment by John Bamford on February 19, 2022 at 11:04: A bit of an update on my razor sharpening just in case anyone wishes to have a try.

First however a pic of the state that you can get into as a fanatic for sharpening.

The rather large amount of stones doesn't; signify any mastery probably the opposite, if I knew a lot I could manage to do the job with only a stone or two.

However this is the herd as things stand,

Comment by John Bamford on January 31, 2020 at 10:19: Just received a parcel from Knives and Tools in Germany. A atoma 400 grit diamond plate, it feels very good quality but will have to see tomorrow. I bought it mostly for flattening water stones with and occasional use on badly damaged razors, however it feels like it would be very good for thinning the blades of kitchen knives

The individual diamonds are flat on top and appear to be very evenly spaced as perhaps can be seen in the next picture

Comment by John Bamford on October 25, 2019 at 14:08: This is me heading down the sharpening rabbit hole along with all the other poor confused folk.

In Memoriam Comment by D ale on October 20, 2019 at 16:55: John,

I was going to ask that earlier but was getting rather wordy. Specifically, one side of all my leather is finished smooth .. the other side is unfinished (suede-ish). I'll be going w/ the unfinished side up/outwards.

I was going to place a finished smooth side on one side of the paddle & then the rougher unfinished leather on the other side of the paddle. I'll now be placing the rougher suede-ish side facing outward on both sides of the paddle.

... Thank you ...

Also, the vast majority of my slipjoints have blades less than 3 inches of cutting edge. However, I do sharpen a few hunting knives for my brothers. I'll likely be choosing a width of 3" for the leather pieces on the paddle. And, somewhere between 12 ~ 15 inches long .. depending on what I have readily in my wood scrap pile.

Thanks again ..&.. best of everything with the household repairs !

DD

Comment by John Bamford on October 20, 2019 at 15:53: Dale, there are two other points that come to mind. You probably are aware of these points but I will spell it out in case anyone else could benefit.

For applying abrasive paste a suede-like finish works best rather than a smooth finish like say a saddle leather.

You can sand down most leather to get the finish you want but saddle leather and other oil-tanned leathers don't seem to work as well, the abrasive won't hold to the leather in use.

Then abrasive pastes come in either an oil-based or water-based type. Personally I prefer the water-based type for two reasons. One is because it is easy to thin the paste down if needed, just add a little water also when the strop becomes heavily stained with black oxide from the steel then it can be cleaned with a damp rag and more abrasive applied. Not too difficult to overcome with the oily type, lighter fluid on a rag works well but water is easier for me.

In Memoriam Comment by D ale on October 20, 2019 at 15:01: !! . Thanks, John . !!

Comment by John Bamford on October 20, 2019 at 13:59: The strop in the picture is 3 inches by 15 inches not including the handle Dale.

The width is to accommodate a razor whose blade length is approx 3inches. The idea with that is to fit the whole edge on the strop to work the whole edge at the same time, the problem was that the leather wasn't totally flat so not all the edge was touching at the same time. You can work around that I guess but I bought one recently to check the flatness of a strop designed purely for razors. I haven't come to any firm conclusions yet as the house is totally disrupted with building works and I am finding it hard to concentrate on sharpening just now.

The only advantages that I can think of is a matter of convenience, ie is the thing just too long for where you wish to work. In general, though I like a longer strop.

I sourced the leather on that strop from a merchant on eBay and he supplies leather in a variety of widths from around 1.5/3.00 inches on a strip around 50 inches in length. I bought a length or two to make hanging strops for razors and they work just fine for either paddle or hanging strops..I have leather on both sides though I guess that isn't really essential. I made the cover to stop from getting grit on the strop which again isn't really necessary for knives but is better for a fine edge like a razor.

In Memoriam Comment by D ale on October 20, 2019 at 13:31: Note: I have plenty of leather to work with. i.e. no size restrictions.

In Memoriam Comment by D ale on October 20, 2019 at 13:28: John,

Thanks for the quick response.

A couple more quick questions ..... what width & length of the leather surface area do you use ? I googled "paddle strops" & quickly found sizes from 8" X 2" ..up to.. 12" X 3" , (20.3 X 5.1 cm ..up to .. 30.5 X 7.6 cm). I'm thinking somewhere along the middle of the road ... 10" X 2.5" , (25.4 X 6.4 cm). Are there advantages / disadvantages of the different dimensions ?

What length & width did you use ?

DD

Comment by John Bamford on October 20, 2019 at 12:07: Hi Dale, I have made a whole stack of paddle strops for knives and I find that they work really well.

I have used leather that I have bought around 2.5/3.5 mm if I remember correctly.

The quality of the leather seems to make little difference, at least as far as knives are concerned.

Once again for knives then I would be quite happy with a normal metal polish the sort you get in a tube, I am sure the names would differ on each side of the Atlantic. If I was to choose a diamond paste then I would look at 10 microns as any extra sharpness that you would get from finer grits would be wasted unless you were using a knife for some specific use. I like to be able to strop from a dull edge and recover an edge which is easier to do with coarser grits. I am using the strop below for my knives in the house at present, I have at least two more in the shed for whittling.

This strop was made for razors and I made a cover for it from papier-mache I had 2 micron on one side and 2.5 on the other side, too fine for knives as far as I am concerned so the dark part you can see is 6 micron which is a little better. The leather is glued on with PVA glue which I like because it will come off if wetted.

One reason that it proved less than perfect for razors is that the leather isn't quite as flat as I would like. If I was to make another then I would grind the leather flat by rubbing it on sandpaper on a flat surface after it was glued in place. I don't know if the leather is at fault or the flatness of the wooden base or if it was an error in the glueing that caused the unevenness. Whatever it was it doesnt trouble me for stropping knives.