Registered from Japan shaving with opinel My hobby is collecting Japanese whetstones. I broke my neck and live in a wheelchair. I look forward to your videos.
Hey Keith rushed home after a 16 hour shift poured a rum very grateful for the video as always that nub who asked to clean the stone with the penguin something tells me this guy shouldn't be touching a straight razor lol as always gorgeous stone gratz
Hey Johnny, good to see you in the comments! Thanks for supporting my channel. Funnily enough, the fellow that thought the penguin was for clearing the stone is actually pretty accomplished at honing, he just over-though the situation that day.... Lol... Happy Honing!
@@KeithVJohnson1 lol no problem ya on a spyder co ultra fine I use an eraser so anything possible. My pleasure love your channel I always learn gratzie brother
Thanks for the video. If the Tomo is harder than the stone itself, I guess you're just raising a slurry from the stone and very little from the Tomo. But there is probably some Tomo in there. It's not like using a diamond plate to raise the slurry. Particles from that would be much larger and you don't want that. Might even be a stray diamond in there. This is the kind of thing I can obsess over, but never mind. I've gotten a Penguin from your Etsy shop. My woman opened the box while I was at work and calls me; "You've got a fire hose belt way too small for you. There's a plastic bag with a small cube of black stuff labeled Black Lightning. And a little toy Penguin. WTF is this!" She seemed upset. The Penguin totally threw her off. I thought I still had a couple of them somewhere but after looking in the obvious places I can't find them.
Harder Tomo + Softer Base Stone = because the slurry from the stone is abrasive in nature, you can still get a good amount of slurry from the Tomo in the mix. Depending on the combo, the percentages can vary a lot, more than one might think actually. Mostly it's just a matter of trying things and seeing what works best though. We really never know what combo is going to be 'the one' until we try it. Those penguins have brought all types of reactions it seems....
Thanks Keith for anoher great video. Your videos are always full of invaluable honing knowledge. Can you make a video about undercut, its types and what do we suppose to see when we are setting the bevel / are at mid honing / are at polishing etc. Does undercut differs when we hone with or without slurry.
Hello, thank you for watching and commenting! It's a good topic but I don't know if the topic of undercut would support its own video, but I do try to touch base on the subject when I am doing honing videos though. The main thing to remember is that it is a relative reference point. You won't see the same thing happen with every razor on every stone - the main idea is to be aware of it, and to watch how it progresses and to develop a sense of how the edge is progressing along with it. Yep, altering water's surface tension with the presence of particulate - aka slurry - does change things, sure. So we wouldn't compare slurry vs water only action. What we do, do, is note how water only progresses from start to finish...and the same for slurry in varying densities. Water only on a certain coticule will be way different than water only on a polished Ark though...so we need to remember that the tell is the progression, from one action to another, not so much comparing my slurry to someone else's. That's one of the main messages I try to convey.
Awsome video man I have learned so much watching your videos. Dumb question but could a small piece of hard ark be hard enough to use to make slurry on a thuri without leaving ark slurry. I have a nice yellow green thuri that’s slick as butter but no slurry stone.
There are no dumb questions. I suppose you could use anything to raise a slurry, so long as it didn't compromise the situation. There's no way for me to say, for sure, 100%, that using a piece of Ark would be ok 100% of the time. Eschers are fine, but they are still abrasive, so you could feasibly wind up with some Ark in the mix, under the right conditions. Compounding the situation, is that Thuris/Eschers don't need slurry to do their job. To be honest I have yet to see any improvement from using slurry on an Escher. It does make for a nice honing experience, because it feels different than plain water. But it's nothing that is going to make edges sharper or whatever. I think using the 'rubber stone' was more about clearing off the working surface. Most were sold without them. I had Eschers for a long time without having a 'rubber' stone, turns out I wan't missing anything. When I finally got a rubber/slurry stone, nothing changed.
Hi, thank you, that's a good topic.Feedback, along with pressure - force actually - is nearly impossible to convey with words all that accurately. I try, and I do mention it and talk about it from time to time. But, what is light pressure to me might seem like super light to someone else, and so on... Feedback and pressure really have to be sorted out via trail and error. I have, in numerous videos, mentioned gauging pressure, but it's a relative thing. Like this video for example, it's basically finishing work and the pressure is light but it varies through the process, and it is learned by sensing the feedback. When I first started, guys would say stuff like "Use light pressure and back off with the change in feedback". That drove me nuts because I didn't understand it at that time. Then I honed a lot more and it made more sense as I kept honing. Each stone and razor combo can be different too, making it harder to explain clearly. If you are looking for the undercut, listening for the sound of the steel on the stone, and trying to feel the steel on the stone too - you realize how much pressure you need to do what you're trying to do.
Another great video, very instructive. I had one question. I can't tell because you isolate your hand and the blade on camera. Are you honing horizontally in front of you (back and forth) or is the stone oriented vertically so that you're honing away from you and then back towards you? I hope that makes sense.
At the sink, on camera, I am usually on a bit of an angle, so - not exactly front to back. The sink bridge spans across the middle in a straight line, I am usually positioned a bit off-center. At the bench, I am usually on more of an angle. So, never fully front to back or side to side. When there is no camera, I just put the stone in the most comfortable position of the moment. Never fully horizontal or vertical though...
Hi Keith, I hope you don't mind me asking, what do you do if you discover that your edge is too sharp? Is there a too sharp edge for you and in that case what do you do to make it "less sharp" so it becomes confteble to shave with?
HI, Sharpness, in and of itself, is never a problem. So, to respond, I'd have to know what the actual issue is, before saying what I would do about it. So, lets say, for example - the issue is that a razor has a foil edge,. Now, a foil edge can be very sharp but the issue isn't too much sharpness. The issue is that that the shave is rough, too touchy, grabby, aggressive - and the edge will fail quickly. So the foil edge would be honed out, and a good edge would be created.
@@KeithVJohnson1 Thanks Keith. I suspect that it might be the issue in my case. When you described "grabby "and "touchy", its exactly what it is. So i will try to take it back to the stone and hone it out, and do som new testing. I recall that you talked about foiled edge in some of your videos, maby i go back and watsh. I will look into it.
