Straight razor honing on Sharpmaker

[Avg_Joe]

I recently acquired two vintage straight razors which I promptly sent off to be honed by a professional and brought to shave readiness. I should be able to keep them shaving with a strop for a while but if I have the patience to continue shaving with them, they will inevitably need re-honed. I am prepared to buy some water stones for this purpose if need be.

My question is can my Sharpmaker do it? I would put the rods on the back of the base and use them freehand but is the standard brown rod too coarse and/or is the standard white rod not fine enough?

What are the approximate grits of the standard Sharpmaker rods?

[TheNeedyCat]

get the utrafine rods or better yet the 306 uf stone and your set, the fine and medium are too course, look up cartercutlery razor sharpening on youtube and there is all the info you need :)

[Cscoop]

I don't think that the fine stones are fine enough. Not even sure if ultra fines would do the trick.

[TheNeedyCat]

also the as for grits, i heard the diamond are 240# the medium are 450# the fine 100# and the ultrafine 6000# but these are rough estimates from a buddy who is very very experienced at sharpening

[dj moonbat]

Spyderco's ultrafine ceramic, whether in triangle rods or bench stones, should be fine enough. The fine, probably not.

[mathomps]

Don't use rods. Get a bench stone...something with some width. And you'll need the ultra at minimum.

I'm no expert...but I've been straight shaving for a few years and that razor needs to be much smoother and more polished than any knife edge to get a comfortable shave (no TO shave...but to shave COMFORTABLY).

I hone up to an 8000 grit waterstone then move to a super smooth Belgian coticule to finish. Many guys will use finishers that are estimated around 30,000+ grit.

Just my 2 pennies!

[Cliff Stamp]

My question is can my Sharpmaker do it?

Yes.

... is the standard brown rod too coarse and/or is the standard white rod not fine enough?

No and no.

What are the approximate grits of the standard Sharpmaker rods?

I would estimate them at 12.5 and 6.5 micron :

http://www.cliffstamp.com/knives/review ... grits.html

Here is the question to ask - how long have people been shaving and second how long have we had ultra-fine particle screened hones? The answer has to be yes, you can use it as people have been using far more coarse and uneven abrasives for a very long time for this purpose.

However a practical question would be - can you notice a benefit of a finer stone and a more polished edge? Consider for example Murray Carter who shaves with edges finished on a 6000 grit waterstone, this is the same as the fine rods, so again people still use this now.

However he was recently raked over the coals by a group of straight razor guys as they would argue for them an edge only starts to become comfortable at 8000 grit and they don't stop there usually. But again do you really think a barber in India has a 15, 000 grit shapton stone?

The only way to know if it is comfortable enough for you is to try it, if the fine rods don't give enough polish then you can try the uf if they don't you can try the extreme level micron powders they are now available in down to 0.05 micron and less.

[sal]

Hi Joe,

I used the UF stone for my straight razors.

sal

[butch]

i have the UFs and fine but they are too slow for me ( i hone a lot of razors ) for the most part a norton 4/8k and a 12 K china hone is all most woul dever need

for far as grit i can get a good shave off a 8k norton dependign on the steel and HT its rare that i even get out the 16k shapton as its nto really that mu ch better on may steels

[razorsharp]

Real men shave off medium rods :p

But yeah, your better off getting UF rods to do the job

[PanChango]

for the most part a norton 4/8k and a 12 K china hone is all most woul dever need

Thats the same setup I use. I do have a small coticle bout, but prefer the edge from the 12k Chinese.

[dj moonbat]

I think stones as fine as people are recommending above were pretty much nonexistent in the straight razor's heyday. I certainly wouldn't go out and get a 12K grit stone JUST for a straight razor.

[NoFair]

I've used the fine and ultrafine rods with very good results. Quick strop afterwards and it's fine.

I've even used the brown and white larger stones when restoring old razors. My youngest razor is over 60 years old :D

[JD Spydo]

get the utrafine rods or better yet the 306 uf stone and your set, the fine and medium are too course, look up cartercutlery razor sharpening on youtube and there is all the info you need :)

Yes to everything "NeedyCat" said I will add that there is an excellent website with Forum you should check out. It's been a huge and excellent source of information for me. go to>> http://www.straightrazorplace.com <<

If you truly want to learn about straight razors and the sharpening equipment that goes with it then Straight Razor Place is truly the best I've found up till now.

Mr. Glesser said it all when he said that the Spyderco Ultra-Fine stones are truly an excellent sharpening tool for straight razors. I would under no circumstances use the brown/gray medium grit Spyderco stone for that application at all. You want the finest stone possible for straight razor honing. Straight Razors as I've discovered are a completely different ball game all together when comparing their sharpening and maintenance to knives.

And Be careful not to "fillet your face" :eek: >> :D

[Cliff Stamp]

Straight Razors as I've discovered are a completely different ball game all together when comparing their sharpening and maintenance to knives.

While this has been stated several times, I have yet to see an explanation for why this would be true. A razor is just a knife which is used to cut hair, nothing more, and since it cuts on a push the cutting is optimized for a high polish. There are in fact knives made which have the same edge angle and thickness as straight razors and in fact made of the same steels, and they are very much knives.

[justinl]

Yes, you can definitely use the sharpmaker with med and fine but i strongly suggest getting ultrafine benchstone. That said, I do not recommend this if you're just starting out with straight razors. The edges of the rods are not as forgiving as broad flat benchstones and this makes it VERY easy to really mess up a fine edge.

Cliff: IMO the same principles apply, but with such a fine edge there's just a need for more maintenance and it is much less forgiving of mistakes. Do you have any links to such knives? I wouldn't mind seeing them, but I'd imagine they'd be quite useless for anything but the lightest of light cutting tasks.

[Cliff Stamp]

...with such a fine edge there's just a need for more maintenance and it is much less forgiving of mistakes.

In general, very general, the thinner the edge and the lower the sharpening angle the easier it is to sharpen a knife. The main reason for this of course is the amplification of cutting ability at such a profile so "sharpness" appears to be greater with an equal edge finish. Straight razors are usually extremely easy to hone as they have deep hollow relief bevels and are just ground straight to the hone, just like similar utility knives :



HSS, full hard, edge is approximately six degrees per side. Primary use is a meat/skinning knife. I normally sharpen my knives at 5-10 degrees per side unless they are more for utility than cutting (digging, scraping, etc.). Even the large chopping knives I have only go up to about 12-14 at the very apex. To put this in perspective, full size felling axes only sweep up to 15 degrees per side in the very apex thus a knife used to cut cardboard, foods, woods, etc. can not demand an angle close to a 3 lbs felling axe slamming into a tree.

...they'd be quite useless for anything but the lightest of light cutting tasks.

Most sharpening angle if you go back a generation or so are far lower than what they are now. I have kitchen knives which were used by my grandparents and they were sharpened flat to the stone, the final edge angle would be in the range of 5-10 degrees per side depending on the knife. Essentially as the blade got more narrow the edge angle kept increasing and by the time it got to about 10 degrees per side it would be used more for utility than general cutting. The main reason that angles are so high now is the prevalence of steels which are not designed for and never intended to be used for cutting tools as they have huge aggregated carbides and very large carbide volumes.

[dj moonbat]

If you look at the knife in Cliff's post, you can see how straight razors are sharpened (well, the ones that aren't FFG, anyway): you lie the hollow grind on the stone and start cutting. The grind line dictates the angle.

As Cliff notes, this will produce a very sharp angle relative to the angles on modern sporting/tactical knives, but this really is not a difference so severe as to be a difference in kind, rather than degree.

The main reason I can see for seeking out the finest stone possible is just that one wishes to ablate as little steel as possible from one's razor. There are certainly straight razor aficionados who say that there is such a thing as "too sharp." (I.e., a razor should easily slice hair, but should not be so sharp that it won't ride on top of your skin rather than simply open up a blood-filled trench.)

[justinl]

thanks Cliff, I'm pretty young and new to the knife scene so it's interesting to see how things have changed over the years.

[Cliff Stamp]

The main reason I can see for seeking out the finest stone possible is just that one wishes to ablate as little steel as possible from one's razor.

If the only thing you are going to use it for is a razor, unless you are body shaving you would likely be better off with an UF paste after the sharpmaker rods as it is unlikely you would ever use up a very finer water stone just on a straight razor so it is a bit of a waste. But if money isn't a concern there are some beautiful natural stones which are very nice to sharpen with. I have some from Malaysia which are almost buttery on the edge.