Honing success...

[Occam]

Well my DMT coarse, extra fine and Spyderco UF hones and Illinois 827 strop arrived today as did an eBay practice razor.

I first took our kitchen Wusthoff knives and gave them a real pounding on the DMT hones to break the hones in. Ended up with some sharper kitchen knives though I wasn't really aiming for too much as my partner hates very sharp knives...

After the breaking in I took the practice razor and got to work setting a bevel on the coarse and then following up with extra fine and then the Spyderco... not a great result but the hone wear on the razor and the blade peculiarities were frustrating. I did some more stroking on the Spyderco just to get a feel for it...

Then I was just too tempted to try this out on the NOS Bartmann and Crown & Sword razors I have.... I started with the Bartmann. I taped the spine and went for it on the coarse... about 15 strokes. Then on the extra fine untaped I did another 25 strokes or so. Finally on the Spyderco about 12 light strokes. Edge was super smooth with a nice bevel.

On to the 827 strop for 57 strokes and voila... a razor that easily pops hairs on the back of my hand.

Repeated it for the Crown and Sword and again another back of the hand hair popper...

Are they shave ready?

I dried them off and put them away feeling happy I hadn't destroyed them and had got a fairly good result I felt. I have a TI Super Gnome ordered with the honing option so I'm going to wait to shave with that one first and that way I can compare it against my own result.

I'm really happy with the strop btw. For $30 this Illinois 827 is an absolute bargain. Beautiful feel on stropping the textured leather makes the feedback from the blade fantastic. The blade was made extra keen by the stropping though I think I was using a bit more pressure than I would have on a smooth strop. The texture and the width made stropping a real pleasure. Very very nice.

I'm tempted to try out the blades on the weekend but I must wait... I must wait...