Thread: What next?

I'm just curious to see what you guys would do in this situation.

About a year or so ago, I bought a nice gold-washed Revisor from Mannyrazor or whatever he's called these days, on ebay. I overpaid, but that's another story.

Anyway, it's an NOS razor. I put it away because I had another Revisor and didn't use it until yesterday. I gave it about 100 laps on leather after about 20 on linen.

It shaved. It took the whiskers off, but it didn't have that perfect feel. So my question is, what should I do? I'm inclined to just go with 50 or so on the Chinese 12K, but I'd like to see what you all have to say.

Here is what I have available:

Norton 4k/8k
Yellow Belgian
Blue Belgian
Hunsrueck (similar to coticule)
Chinese 12 K
Diamond paste 3K-.25K
Boron Carbide (1.8K?)
Chrom Ox

Thanks

Jordan

Try a few laps on the yellow coticule with just water (no slurry) to see if that smooths it up a bit.

If it isn't quite sharp enough the diamond paste should do the job.

If neither of those work, go back to first principles. Do the thumbpad test, use something in the 8K range if it fails. If you think the bevel isn't set do the thumbnail test, if it fails go back to 4K, and do a pyramid or a progression, whichever suits you best.

I have the same Revisor as you and use the Coticule for touch ups. I find about 60 passes does the trick.

Definitely keep notes, I find it hard to keep track, unless of course you have a good memory. +1 on the Coti, I'd try that, depending on how yours reacts, you may even try a light slurry for ten laps or so, then just water for another 20, then 20 passes on cr02. I just did this with one of my W&B choppers and WOW, what a great shave. If you want, you can slip a couple of laps in before the cro2 on the C12k. the only thing with me is, I hate soaking that thing for 30 mins, so many times, I don't even use it.

Based on what you have, I would recommend 10-15 strokes on the Coticule with water only followed, by 10 strokes on the chromium oxide. If close but just not quite there, I would do 10 on the boron oxide and 10 on the chromium oxide and it should be there. Revisors are very delicate blades and easy to bring around.

Good luck,

Lynn

It never hurts to do 50 light strokes on a Coticule with water.

But it won't make the razor sharper, only smoother.
It's also possible on a NOS (factory honed?) razor that it has an odd bevel angle, in which case the very edge wouldn't even touch the hone, before that situation is dealt with. In that case you might be better off using pastes, if you don't feel like resetting a bevel.

Maybe a conservative number of laps starting on the diamond paste and working your way up to the CrO.

But if you ask what would I do?
Granted that I like honing as much as shaving...
I'd refresh the bevel with one layer of tape (I'm presuming that the gold wash is on the spine as well, hence I'd want to protect that)
I'd use a Coticule with slurry for that.
Next I'd go chasing more keenness on the Belgian Blue with slurry and possibly also on the Norton 8K.
I'd finish on the Coticule with water and a drop of soap.
Then I'd strop 60 laps on clean leather.
If that doesn't give a distinct improvement with the pre-stropping performance (I use the HHT for checking that) I'd give it 5-10 light laps on a CrO paddle strop (or a hanging strop put on a flat surface), just to help the devellopment of a good fin a bit. (It's only rarely necessary, in my honing experience).

That's what I would do.

Best regards,
Bart.

My thought would be to look at the edge under magnification, say 30x or more, then decide on a course of action.

Even new razors sometimes need more work than we think.

What I usually do with NOS:

First paint the edge with a black marker. Then 10 to 20 laps on my finest hone. If the bevels pass the black marker test then I stay on the finest hone and proceed upwards normally. If not, I start to set bevels using normal procedure on a coarser hone.

So I went 5 passes on the Norton 8K then about 75 passes on the coticule with water and about 25 trips with soap lather (my coticule is 6x2). Had a great shave. This seems to have done the trick. I may or may not give it 6 or 7 trips on the chrom ox. Thank you for all the good advice. I'll have to try some of the alternatives next time - just to see what happens.

Jordan