Honing Some Gold Monkey 666 SRs

[rbscebu]

@Andrew C has sent me two Gold Monkey 666 straight razors for honing. They are "as received" from the manufacturer, Ningbo Gold Dollar Razor & Scissors Manufacture Co., Ltd., Zhejiang, China with their factory edge. Once honed, one is to be returned to @Andrew C and the other he has requested me to PIF on his behalf on P&C. This is my first experience with Gold Monkey razors and @Andrew C has asked be to report in detail about my honing experience with them.

My first step in honing a SR is to study the blade's edge. These are the razors that I have received:

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Observing the No. 1 blade, it is noted that the edge has a pronounced up-kick at the toe of about 1mm and that there is an ever so slight hook at the heel. The up-kick is of no great concern, however it will require a little "gymnastics" while honing. The slight hook will be removed with honing.

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Observing the No. 2 blade, the edge also has an up-kick at the toe but not as pronounced as the No. 1 blade. There is also a very noticeable chip in the edge below the "M" that will require some work to remove. No noticeable hook was found at the heel.

I next performed a chest-hair test on each edge. I find my chest hairs to be ideal for testing a blade's keenness. They are generally about 3cm to 4cm long and of about the same diameter/strength as my facial whiskers. To perform this test, I gently hold a chest hair out horizontally and then slowly bring the blade's edge down to cut the hair at about a 45° angle away from my skin. As the edge (hopefully) cuts the hair, I mentally note the amount of tugging the hair exerts on my skin. This gives me an indication of the edge's keenness. Both edges surprisingly cut reasonably well, about what I would expect to get off a 10k Japanese synthetic whetstone. Most of my previous factory edged Gold Dollars would not even cut the hair.

With the chest-hair test results, I decided to give the No. 1 edge a try at shaving. It worked in all three directions; WTG, XTG and ATG. Even the fool's pass was not too uncomfortable. I wasn't game to risk shaving with the No. 2 and it's chipped edge.

More to follow.

 

[rbscebu]

I have one of my girlfriends staying with me for a few days. This morning I cooked our breakfast; pork fritters with scrambled eggs on toast. Now back to the Gold Monkeys.

Next step is to perform a Sharpie pen test. You don't necessarily use a Sharpie pen. Any permanent ink marker pen will do. Use va dark colour like black or blue. I "painted" both bevels on each of the blades with a black permanent marker pen.

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The purpose of an ink test is to determine what part(s) of a bevel are in contact with a flattened whetstone surface. Once inked, each blade was given about 5 laps each side on a flattened 1k whetstone (you cloud alternatively use a 12µm or 9µm lapping film hone). This will remove the ink where the bevel is in contact with the honing surface. Here are my results with each blade:

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All looked good with No. 1 blade except at the heel on the face side. Here there was still some ink showing so I will need to pay some attention to this area while honing.

The No. 2 blade had similar results.

The most common results from an ink test on factory edges is that a compound bevel surface is observed. This is shown by ink being removed on the upper surface of the bevel while ink remains near and at the edge. If such is observed, some heavier metal removal is required on the bevel to get a single flat bevel surface to extend all the way down to the edge. Fortunately on both of these razors, no com pound bevel was found.

Next I will start the honing proper, commencing with No. 1 blade.

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[rbscebu]

The gear that I will be using to hone both of these SRs to shave-ready consists of:

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400/1K cheap Chinese whetstone under running water​

3k/8k cheap Chinese whetstone under running water​

5µm, 3µm and 1µm lapping films on acrylic substrate under running water​

0.5µm, 0.25µm and 0.1µm diamond pasted balsa strops​

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The Chinese whetstones are flattened with 600 grit and 1k grit diamond plates for the 400/1k and 3k/8k respectively. Instead of diamond plates, you could use 600 and 1k grit W&D sandpaper on a smooth flat 30cm x 30cm floor tile.

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[rbscebu]

No.1 SR Honing on Whetstones

First things first. I needed to remove the slight hook in the edge at the heel. This was done on the side of the 1k whetstone by very lightly bread-knifing about 6mm along the edge at the heel until the hook was gone. Care was taken not to touch any further part of the edge as that was not necessary and only would have made more work for me.

Then about 20 laps were done on one side of the blade on the 1k proper. Care was taken to roll the blade towards the toe while honing to ensure that I honed all the way to the toe. I checked for a bur on the edge with the tip of my tongue (more sensitive than my finger). This is done by kind of licking across the blade from the middle of the hollow grind to the edge. There was already a bur forming. This was then repeated on the other side of the blade with similar results.

Still using the 1k, I now worked on getting a bur on both sides of the blade at the heel. This took more work, possibly about 100 laps on each side before the bur started to be felt. To finish off on the 1k, I performed 15 normal laps on each side, end-for-ended the stone and gave the blade another 15 laps on each side.

Now it was time to move onto the 3k to finish settling the bevel. about 10 laps on one side had a bur along the full length of the edge. The same on the other side. Finished on the 3k with two lots of 30 normal laps, end-for-ending the whetstone between each lot of 30.

Next was to start refining the edge on the 8k. I did two lots 45 normal laps, end-for-ending the whetstone between each lot of 45. Here is the No. 1 blade off the 8k whetstone:

Now to remove the marker pen ink with acetone, being careful to not touch the painted logo on the face side.

Here endeth the whetstone work.

 

[rbscebu]

No. 1 SR Honing on Lapping Films

There isn't a lot of detail to give here as it is all rather straight forward. Like honing on whetstones, all lapping film honing was done under running water. The full procedure was:

5µm with about double blade weight pressure

10 laps edge leading​

5 laps edge trailing​

3 shout pull strokes​

10 laps edge leading​

5 laps edge trailing​

3 shout pull strokes​

End-for-end lapping film​

10 laps edge leading​

5 laps edge trailing​

3 shout pull strokes​

10 laps edge leading​

5 laps edge trailing​

3 shout pull strokes​

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3µm with about 1½ blade weight pressure

17 laps edge leading​

5 laps edge trailing​

3 shout pull strokes​

17 laps edge leading​

5 laps edge trailing​

3 shout pull strokes​

End-for-end lapping film​

17 laps edge leading​

5 laps edge trailing​

3 shout pull strokes​

17 laps edge leading​

5 laps edge trailing​

3 shout pull strokes​

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1µm with blade weight pressure only

25 laps edge leading​

5 laps edge trailing​

3 shout pull strokes​

25 laps edge leading​

5 laps edge trailing​

3 shout pull strokes​

End-for-end lapping film​

25 laps edge leading​

5 laps edge trailing​

3 shout pull strokes​

25 laps edge leading​

5 laps edge trailing​

3 shout pull strokes​

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Here is No. 1 blade after finishing on the lapping films:

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This blade is now almost cutting hanging hair to perfection. Just needs some work on the diamond pasted balsa.

 

[rbscebu]

No. 1 SR Honing on diamond pasted balsa

Again nothing much to state here except for my normal sequence.

All edge trailing.

0.5µm with about double blade weight pressure

15 laps​

5 shout pull strokes​

15 laps​

5 shout pull strokes​

End-for-end balsa​

15 laps​

5 shout pull strokes​

15 laps​

5 shout pull strokes​

0.25µm with about 1½ blade weight pressure

22 laps​

5 shout pull strokes​

23 laps​

5 shout pull strokes​

End-for-end balsa​

22 laps​

5 shout pull strokes​

23 laps​

5 shout pull strokes​

0.1µm with blade weight pressure only

30 laps​

5 shout pull strokes​

30 laps​

5 shout pull strokes​

End-for-end balsa​

30 laps​

5 shout pull strokes​

30 laps​

5 shout pull strokes​

0.1µm hanging so less than blade weight pressure

15 laps​

5 shout X strokes​

15 laps​

5 shout X strokes​

End-for-end balsa​

15 laps​

5 shout X strokes​

15 laps​

5 shout X strokes​

There was no change to the look of the blade from finishing on the lapping films. Overall, I spent about one hour in honing this blade and a lot more time taking photos and writing this thread.

Any questions, feel free to ask them in this thread and I will do my best to address them.

Now for the only test that really matters - the shave test. I will report that in the SOTD thread.

 

[rbscebu]

No. 2 SR Honing
The chip in the edge was the main defect that needed attention with this SR. Using my much abused 1k/3k kitchen knife whetstone, I bread-knifed the blade's edge on the side of the 1k stone until there was not a hint of a chip and almost no bevel showing. You could say that blade now had a 180° bevel angle.

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Now the heavy work begins. I taped the spine with one layer of plastic insulation tape and commenced work on my 400 grit cheap Chinese whetstone. The purpose of this was to get some sort of a decent bevel on the blade. It took about 1,500 to 2,000 laps, two re-lappings of the whetstone and four tape replacements before there was almost no light reflection off the edge.

I then removed the tsape and moved on to the 1k stone for initial bevel setting. Once I was getting a burr to start forming on parts of the edge, I moved on to the 3k for final bevel-setting. From there it was onto the 8k stone, lapping films (5µm, 3µm & 1µm) and finishing on diamond pasted balsa (0.5µm, 0.25µm & 0.1µm).

Now for the only test that matters - the shave test.

 

[rbscebu]

No. 2 SR Shave Test
I preped and lathered up with Palmolive Regular cream and a no-brand Chinese guaranteed genuine pure badger synthetic brush. The shave went exceptionally well but with one blade fault. While shaving N - S on my chin the blade gave me a tiny weeper where it cut a small mosquito bite that I didn't know I had.

As I am PIFing this razor and will never be shaving with it again, I will not try to correct its "fault".