How to Sharpen a Straight Razor with just 3 stones. Jasper, 1k Chosera & DMT 325 grit diamond plate
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.พ. 2025
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#StraightRazor #NaturalWhetstoneSharpening #sharpening
Great video showing the progression from A to Z. Thanks.
I’m glad you found it useful Mike.
Thanks so much. I've had a translucent arkansas but I've never sluuried before. I've managed a good best shave ever with my German gong hollow ground.
Never too old to learn ...im 64
Last year, I bought a straight razor with replaceable blades. My brother had recently switched to a safety razor, and I wanted to jump from an electric phillips one blade (which is amazing) to a single, metal blade. No Er visits... but I've paid for my learning in blood- literally... Now, I'm learning how to sharpen blades, and I really hope the rabbit hole ends here. I've watched dozens of videos about sharpening. And, there is something so amazing about the way you explain the language and techniques. I'm very impressed and immensely appreciative. Thank you so much! I love using a straight razor and I will never go back to electric, except maybe to use on vaccation. lol! It's the most rewarding ritual for a man to experience.
Yeah shavettes are no joke man I learned on one of them lol it made the transition to traditional straight razors that much more easy. Still a learning curve.
some things I would advise here;
6:35, 18:01 lapping while not simultaneously covering the whole surface to be lapped with the lapping device is not a good way to ensure the surface to be lapped will be a perfect match to the lapping device.
8:32 I'm not saying which one is better or worse, but geometrically speaking what you are doing here can correctly be described as 'carving a flatter, thicker-tipped, less wide cutting edge out from inside of a less flat, thinner-tipped, wider cutting edge'. That's how a grinder in Germany once described this to me.
9:19 However gentle, what you are doing here is permanently reducing the maximum width of the cutting edge. If a stone(s) was used which was convex along its width, or for that matter just a really narrow stone, the contact patch of the abrasive would be small enough so that the inherent/unavoidable slight warp in most razors could be accommodated without permanently reducing the width of the razor, where the very best potential performance of the razor exist. You might be able to 'reset the bevel' without killing the edge and without meaningfully reducing the widest parts of the razor. What you're doing, however gentle, now we must start by carving in a new isosceles triangle shaped bevel which has its tip wholly behind and inside of the gently flattened area at the front of the razor which you've just created.
I don't have a time stamp for this, but if you do the 'sharpie' test and the stone's effective diameter across the stone is less than the effective diameter of the warp in the razor, you can do standard
edge/stone-parallel strokes (= *not* the 'rolling-x', which is edge/stone NOT parallel) and you will always have all of the cutting edge removing the Sharpie if the razor width from spine to apex was identical across the cutting edge span.
15:22 In this shot, almost all of the cutting edge span on the non-show side has been unnecessarily sharpened, reducing the width of the razor (while also increasing the inclusive angle due to the tape). Due to the warp, the factory edge's sharpness might not be maximized across its whole, but in some areas it will be hard to improve - and by taping and staying on the flat 1000# stone, ALL of the cutting edge has had time on-stone, where if we could only improve the bad areas and ignore the rest we would have a wider 'bevel set' razor.
18:36, 22:42, 26:01 We are only looking at the apex from the side here; while certainly useful information, it does not tell the whole story to grinders. From what I have seen, master grinders tend to look directly AT the (very hard to see) apex from dead-on instead. A question a grinder might ask here would be, "Once you get the from-the-side apex examination looking the way you desire, how far from the apex toward the spine does the metal extend while in a state of thickness remaining below the average thickness of a human hair? Will it be better to have a superior from-the-side appearance of the bevel refinement with a cutting edge that becomes thicker than a human hair at a much shorter distance behind the apex, or will it be better to have a toothy/rougher from-the-side appearance in bevel refinement upon a cutting edge that remains thinner than a human hair for a longer distance behind the apex?"
20:07 better to keep 100% of that lapping plate touching 100% of the jasper stone if the goal is to keep the jasper stone flat.
I'm sure the shave was not helped at all by not having much of any beard prep, but judging from the sounds off of that razor during the shave, I feel pretty strongly that however sharp the finished edge is off of that Jasper, that the whole of the bevel is a flat flush 2/3rds of an isosceles triangle form + reducing the width of the razor are not doing your beard any favors, and if you were to experiment with trying to keep the razor edge as thin as possible, as well as trying to keep the razor as wide as possible, you may possibly get better results.
Böker, I think, has a lot of respect in the 'straight razor community', and I think they're making it pretty clear here
tinyurl.com/ywmjfu85
that they intend their bevels themselves to have a small hollow grind, reason being that by doing so they're extending the length of the area at the apex which remains thinner in sum than a human hair width, and however refined it may or may not actually be at that tip being another, entirely separate, challenge, and one that is not intended by the maker to be "solved" at the expenses of increasing the inclusive cutting angle or reducing the total razor width or reducing the total area of metal which is as thin as a hair or thinner.
WOW, what a self indulgent jerk
@@jamesharmon3827 No, what he is said is quite true.
My grandgather sharpen razors on flat piece of marble and basicly a leather belt you use for pants.
That is a beautiful razor.
Good video, I ordered one if your jasper hones today before I watched this video. I look forward to using it.
Great video
Great video! I understood what you told me about the electrical tape, but it's always better to see you do it. My spine is worn, but I THINK the bevel is still good. Also, I need to get those DMD Tools you had so I can sharpen and slurry like you did. Looks so much easier than my current setup
Lots of good technique and tips. Very helpful video.
Also going to look into one of those microscopes....
Awesome brother glad to be of service to you!
Hope you had a great Christmas Mr. Warren.
Thanks my friend I hope you did as well.
Man. Dulling the blade on the edge like that hurted my soul. But I guess thanks for all the advices
Very gently dulling the edge on a true and Straight surface barely removes sharpness, and then gives you an excellent foundation for sharpening anew. I’m taking care not to chip the edge or destroy the bevel angle, it’s done very carefully.
Nice video, Gabriel! I'm going to try your technique when I have some time. By the way, you do look much better with a clean shaven face!
Awesome let me know how you like the techniques!
I like the beard more, but thanks for the sacrifice so we can see how it’s done!
what do you think of stone made of pure cement?
cement is so fine as you know
The average particle size of cement is usually between 10 µm and 20 µm.
thanks
@@ahmedelshamy5718 I don’t have experience with this personally. The binder is one thing but the abrasive content is another
with cement you can sharp a some spear and try to hunt bambi in forest
Do you have any certain tool such as A sand paper tool which join as a rolling grind paper that joint with a Impact drill etc?
Ll' l need the tool to sharpen my flat knive of mine which has a lottle bit long abandoned, sir.Ll' l've seen the strapable sand paper which 've been cut ln a certain size and put on the lmpact grind machine.
Hi and thank you for the tutorial!
I have been trying to sharpen up two straight razors, but my sharpening stones are all homemade natural with the exception of a 400grit diamond hone.
I can get the razors to shave arm hair effortlessy but are very grabby when I try them on beard.
The stones that I have are one made of Quartz, a translucent white Arkansas and yesterday I made another small one from a very hard smooth black stone after which the razor shaves arm hairs off without stropping.
I also have Chromium oxide paste maybe around 3-4 micron in size.
Could you direct me as to which other natural stones could be used as a substitute for Jade or Jasper(as these don't exist in my region) could Quartz work? I also have a piece of very smooth black flint from Denmark which I have started polishing into a hone.
I would like to sharpen up the razors properly it's kind of a goal of mine, but don't feel like spending hundreds of bucks on hones as I don't shave regularly.
Thank you for your attention!
It sounds like you found hard and fine stones
Now it’s just trial and error because not all stones of the same variety are made equal. Some quartzite works great and other quartzite is trash. It totally depends on the make up of the stone.Honestly your biggest issue may be if you set the initial edge with your 400 grit diamond plate.
I would go with the 1000 grit stone I use in this video and then go to your polishing stones. If your initial scratch pattern leaves deep grooves and valleys, you’re basically polishing a serrated edge and it will continue to be grabby and rough on your beard even if you go through refining the edge. If the foundation is jagged, it’s really hard to clean up with natural stones. How do you set the bevel is everything for straight razor polishing. My next biggest recommendation is get a $30 USB microscope so that you can observe your work - you will probably find that you are able to visually see what I am talking about.
@NaturalWhetstoneSharpening Thank you for the fast reply.
I indeed set the bevel of one of the razors on that diamond hone even tho it is quite worn out maybe a 600 grit at this point in time.
Haven't thought that could be the issue, I'll spend more time on a lower grit stone now.
As you said it does look like it'll be a lot of trial and error, unfortunately the human senses are not very good at determining which stones are the finest grit.
Another thing I know is not working in my favor is the fact that my stones are not perfectly flat, they are all cut with a diamond wheel on an angle grinder and flattened out by rubbing them against an old bench grinder wheel.
@@nickulvatten1039 yeah so that’s another thing that will completely ruin How good a shave with a straight razor feels. Your stones must be completely dead flat and smooth. Your statement of the human senses. Cannot pick up What grit level you are using is sort of correct but it’s also not absolute. That said over time You will certainly develop a feel for the engaging sensations and smoothness of the sharpening you do with various stones. Also, I’m not saying you should spend more time on your lower grit 400/600 grit diamond plate,
I’m saying that you should not be setting the bevel of your razor on that stone at all! Because it’s what follows that is causing you issues if you can’t remove that scratch pattern. Hence using a jewelry loop or microscope to observe your edge is critical.
You should be setting the bevel with a 1000 grit NOT a 400 or 600. If you don’t have the money to spend $80 on the naniwa Chosera you can get a king 1000 grit. Your diamond plate will come in handy for flattening stones, if you don’t have hard stones like Jasper, jade and quartzite you will need to flatten them BEFORE every session. I’d use that over rubbing rocks against each other. If your stone is not true, smooth and flat it’s a waste of time trying to hone the razor to shave your face. It’s a different animal than knife honing.
@NaturalWhetstoneSharpening I guess I didn't word that properly, I meant I was gonna spend more time on a lower grit stone as in something closer to a 1000 grit than the polishing stones, I'm definitely not using the diamond hone for bevel setting anymore.
I can definitely feel the difference between the smoothness of different stones and it becomes even more evident when I used my nail to scratch the surface but still can't be 100% sure.
I am aware that not having perfectly flat surfaces is ruining it, but from the videos I have watched videos of straight razor shaves in primitive conditions (Middle East)
The barbers honing the razors there are using dished out stones, and hone the razors in the opposite way on the stone as if they are stropping it, and the shaves look quite smooth and effortless, so this gave me hope that I can achieve something similar with Diy equipment myself.
I did manage to shave about a 2 month old beard with that grabby razor it did cut me a few times and had to finish it off with a safety razor, overall it was fun.
So I'm not looking for the most comfortable silky shave out there haha.
@@nickulvatten1039 this is such a great conversation we were having here I wish that it was in the community group. Are you a member of the wild Whetstones Facebook group? You should come check it out and will take the dialogue there because there’s so many people who will learn from this exchange.. concave versus convex versus flat stones is a whole bother discussion haha, you can use a stone like that
Great vid. Are you still selling stones?
Right now my friend zak Reinhart is handling the whetstones while I’m on deployment with the army! Shoot him a message in the group or make a post in the Facebook group Natural Whetstone Sharpening Wild Whetstones Community
Hi Gabriel, do you kindly happen to have a big jasper stone for sale - one that’s really clean and preferably close to 8” * 3” if possible. Plz let me know at your earliest convenience. Thanks for all u do sir
Hey there Samla, thank you for your appreciation of our work. Right now we are working on revamping the website and all of our sharpening stones are currently being re stocked. 2 choices - one subscribe to our email list on the home page of the website if you don’t mind waiting or come add your energy to the Facebook community group and snag one sooner - my partner Zach Reinhart is posting and selling stones individually while I’m on Deployment with the Army. You can message him in the group and he will get you set up way faster - it may be another month or two till the website is restocked
m.facebook.com/groups/1676642489259386/
What size of grit has the jasper stone?
@@antonzanker it’s hard to put grit on natural stone, but very fine - estimated 30k when it’s maxed out. But it can also cut pretty fast with slurry and transition an edge to a finer pattern. You might like the video series. I just finished recently on mastering straight, razor sharpening in the part two video. I go into great detail about synthetic versus natural sharpening stones and show the edges under a microscope.
I’ve been drooling over that razor for about a year now, but unfortunately for me the only compulsion I have that is stronger than my need to collect razors is my impulse to collect sharpening stones. I have a serious problem. So…Jasper you say?
@@slappydoolittle7329 haha right now I’m out of Jasper but check out the website because I do have a batch of very special new stones that I’m just waiting to make a video on
WildWhetstones.com/shop
Can I rely on the backing width of the razor to set the angle of honing?
hey mister 🙂 what microscope do you use?
A cheapie 500x magnification USB one from Amazon 😎
@@WildWhetstones do you have an emailadress I can send pictures to of my honing progression or questions of any sort?
Can you put the blade under the microscope after you strop. Wonder if there is any noticeable difference
What did you charge the strop with?
Do you have inventory of any stones?
Thanks,
Dave
Yes we do! I’m currently on deployment in Kuwait but while I’m doing my active duty army thing my best friend and partner Zach Reinhart is managing whetstone creation and posting on our Facebook community group feel free to add your energy to it! And message him for stones
m.facebook.com/groups/1676642489259386/
What about Black jade? Is it better, worse, or same that jadeite/green jade for sharpening knife/kukri? Because in my country black jade is cheaper than jadeite, and it's beautiful to use it as a necklace
Yo, so the reason why my bevel is wider and slimmer on parts of the blade is because my stone is not flat?
Could it be my technique?.
The whole blade cuts exactly the same, like almost baby smooth on the downward stroke.
I have like a wide bevel at the back as it goes to the front, the bevel almost disappears, like you can't see any striation lines at all but it still cuts great.
I'm using the carbon elite 3.0.
Should my bevel be actually slimmer the whole blade? And the wider parts are parts I have over sharpend?
Lee, it is just as possible that is because your razor has a spine that is not straight, the quench processes during forging causes a little warp in most razors.
Don’t worry about how it looks visually if the whole edge cuts great and shaves smooth. Yes always check that your stone is flat, that said since your whole edge cuts exactly the same it’s highly likely it’s just because the spine of the razor has that curve. Don’t try to hone it out to make it look visually symmetric- you won’t beat the curve haha and it’ll just get more eccentric. The best test is shaving and if it shaves well don’t worry about it.
@@WildWhetstones thanks for the quick response, I just bought the shapton pros, 1500k 5000k 8000k with the la lune to finish, they are slightly off flat, think I'm going to buy the Atoma 400 to flatten them, I bought the icebear pink flattening stone and it's not flat lol..the bloody curve.
I will leave as you said tho as it does cut well. Thanks again👍👍
@@leeknoz935 nice set of stones, instead of the atoma diamond plate I’d recommend the DMT 325 coarse continuous plated - dots pattern plates wear out much faster.
Is the honing faster with slurry on the 1k ?
It’s about the same or slightly faster
I think I have you beat on the number of faces made in the mirror. Age, reconstructive surgery, chemo and radiation require extreme facial gymnastics to get a good shave without the lavatory looking like a slaughterhouse. I definitely DO NOT rush my shaves. Other differences are I lead up going through my Arkansas stones, finishing with the jasper that I finished with 3 rounds of 3.5 micron diamond paste and a dab of food grade mineral oil and another jasper stone. After cleaning the oil up (easy since jasper has no porosity) with alcohol spray hand sanitizer. For sharpening I use Dawn and warm water, then strop with the same paste.
Thanks for sharing Kirk!
I only use naniwa super stones at a progression of 1k 3k 8k then finish with my 12k. Then i normally do crome ox after then my regular stropping routine
Yeah I’ve done that. I just don’t like that they can absorb water and eventually crack. Also they are consumable so in the long run I find that I only really like to use the 1000 or 3000 at the most. Jade or Jasper gives me a better edge for the final polish, it’s approximately 30k grit, and never wears out or absorbs water leading to spider webbing like the naniwa do.
I’m going to share the reply I made to “User-jb7ok6re3o” in the main thread as well incase he deletes his original comment.
Wow, that’s amazing, everything you just said was wrong. The razor is a Bergischer löwe by dovo, made in GERMANY. Not Swedenish steel but from Solingen. Also, all the finishing stones you just mentioned are far softer than Jasper. Japanese slate, Italian, Belgian coticule etc are all MUCH softer stones. Jasper is as hard as Arkansas stones, Quartzite and Jade. So wrong again on that. Shall I continue ?
Dovo razor in the video you can see how crooked it is, new razors in most cases are junk
@@Electron_av yeah it took a lot of work to get it right - but warps are pretty common on new and old razors - it’s from the heat quench process making the blade flex I believe.
If you use a convex stone its not a problem and you can isolate sections perfectly instead of wrecking the razor by flattening everything to crap wasting precious steel. You can even make a gold dollar shave amazing and not look like it was flattened by a car. If he used a convex stone his razor would not look like that.
why aren't you trailing the edge? I'm asking cause I've just seen a video that said you shouldn't lead with the edge. could you please clarify? I honestly want to learn but have no idea who's telling the truth cause I'm completely new to straight razors
I’ve always used edge leading strokes, and it works excellent for me. People talk about removing a burr with edge trailing strokes but honestly this is miss information because the bevel angle should stay consistent always regardless of if you go forward or backwards, and there should be zero burr once you’ve set the bevel. I hope this helps. The best answer is try both methods for yourself and see what you like best. To say you can only do it trailing seems very wrong to me, since I almost never do an excessive amount of trailing strokes and I always get an excellent razor edge.
@@WildWhetstones cheers mate!
hello, do you answer questions using an emailadress? kind regards, Matti
Yes you can send a message to us on our website and I can respond via email.
NaturalWhetstoneSharpening.com
Doesn't sound good, a razer like this at it's maximum sharpness should just make a sizzling noise.
Thanks for sharing your opinion. 😂
holy hell this guy NEVER shuts up. Why use 3 words when 13,356 will do
@@Bozemanjustin lol dude thanks for counting how many words!! In all honesty educational videos may not be for people who cannot handle listening to a statement longer than a sentence as it may require some brain power.
What you have is an excellent razor made of Swedish steel, excellent, but no offense, the sharpening was not very good and you could see the razor was getting dull and between He was tearing his fur, you could hear it from the noise. that well-sharpened razor comes down and cuts like a lightsaber I recommend a very hard finishing stone Whether Japanese, Italian, Belgian, Irish, there is something for every budget and you have to spend a lot of time there Above and I advise you to finish with dirty slurry water, it must be slightly beige water ,you will get better results under the roof polish the bevel to a mirror finish which makes it stick to the skin with some blades,and skim without tape the blade will have greater grip and parity Say about geometry with the breath that you will put in your face I have a lot of experience try your hardest you can resell it with a synthetic one and the natural one you have it takes experience which at your age you can't Still have for age reasons not because you are not good actually nice video😅😅😅
Wow, that’s amazing, everything you just said was wrong. The razor is a Bergischer löwe by dovo, made in GERMANY. Not Swedenish steel but from Solingen. Also, all the finishing stones you just mentioned are far softer than Jasper. Japanese slate, Italian, Belgian coticule etc are all MUCH softer stones. Jasper is as hard as Arkansas stones, Quartzite and Jade. So wrong again on that. Shall I continue ?
@@WildWhetstones Find out before making a fool of yourself Solingen is the German city where they produce the Dovos, yours too but yours is the top they make and the steel exclusively to create the Lowe and perhaps another one just The best steel that has ever been released is Swedish, informed well before acting the fool, Solingen is like Sheffield where the wade and butchers made North London, or like Thiers in France where They do Thiers issard, but what am I talking to do with a naive person who doesn't even know what he's holding in his hands, wake up fool
@@WildWhetstones e
And you even dare to call yourself by that ridiculous nickname🤣🤣🤣
@@WildWhetstones I'll give you a level 5++ ozuko or you prefer my level 5+++ maruka then I'll take the Arkansas and make sand out of it, do you want to spend little and see a tough Italian buy Ardesia Ligure It costs €35/40 then you tell me which one is a hard stone
@@SimonettaCattaneo-d8m Japanese whetstones regardless of how many of those plus signs are added for denoted hardness vs other slate are all still slate. You’ll learn more about sharpening if you study some geology instead, MOHs hardness and specific gravity of slate vs Jasper is a good place to start.
whoever results to ad hominem attacks first in a debate is the clear loser.
“Ad hominem attack” adverb
1.
in a way that is directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
You didn’t address any of the points that I brought up and you don’t have a factual basis to stand on for anything that you’re talking about. You’re just making a fool out of yourself. I don’t understand what you are trying to accomplish here sir.
Turn off the water while dhaving lol...🙄
@@noname-hb8vk why?
The quality of information in this video is inversely proportionate to the quality of the video production. 😅
Hey Falling Leaves Kungfu, thank you for your feedback- that was also an eloquent way to put it and I appreciate you. I’ll work on my video production quality. Where I’m at right now with being in the Army and having my buddy Zak take over the whetstone creation, I have not put time towards sharpening videos and I miss making content.
Which parts of the video production do you think would be the biggest improves to work on? I’m open to your feedback.
@@WildWhetstones hey bro, I was just razzing you. This is probably one of, if not THE best, most carefully explained and demonstrated sharpening videos I've seen so far and I've seen more than one "professional" knife TH-camr with expensive HD cameras and lighting/sound. Your setup is super basic but effective. Keep your head on a swivel out there! 😎🤙🇺🇲