Thread: The Finished Edge

I have seen this on my synthetics also - but never on a slurry stone.

This is a reply to Sigoy. Why post this. It doesn't add anything subnative to this great discussion, just a laugh at someone else's expense.

[EDIT] Please [/EDIT] Read the thread again, joe. There was alot of humor in it. I'm not laughing at anybody's expense, but at the humor of an earlier poster. [EDIT] I hope you have a laugh as well [/EDIT]

Happy Shaves!

Originally Posted by wildfirejoe00

This is a reply to Sigoy. Why post this. It doesn't add anything subnative to this great discussion, just a laugh at someone else's expense.

I'm pretty sure Lynn can handle it. If you do a bit more reading here you will learn that we don't always take ourselves too seriously.

To quote Lynn,

Have fun!

I definitely experience the same Lynn. My linen of my scotch lassie was freshly flipped and white 6 months ago, now it is turning black!

I assume these are the steel particles you are referring to. I don't use pressure either, regular stropping has this effect.

I can't believe I missed this discussion!!

In my experience the edge, especially off of natural stones, has the little "foils" that lynn talks about, and I never shave with a razor that hasn't been stropped. If those foils are not serious defects, but just particles hanging on from the regular honing, off they go and the edge left behind is thin and shaves like a champ.

Different stones do different things with the "foils".

I also use a vintage linen, like Dire says above about the scotch lassie. Before I even go to my linen, I wipe the razor off to take metal particles off of it as much as I can strictly because those little foils and other metal particles end up on the linen, and those particles will work as an abrasive themselves on a razor. After two or three years, my silk finish linen is just starting to get some dark spots on it, and those dark spots grow quickly once they're there. Iron oxide is somewhere in the neighborhood of hardened steel in mohs, so little particles of razor steel can definitely abrade razor (no ill effect that I can see yet, though).

When we talk about various levels of stones here and shaving right off of them (the low grit stones particularly), I'm always a bit in the weeds for that discussion, because they all leave some foreign particles, and you can be thrown two ways by the effect of those - they may seem less sharp than the razor, or sometimes create a "false edge" that seems sharp if the foiling cuts hair (they call that a false edge in woodworking, because you test it, and then put it to the wood and it's gone immediately).

I'm no honemeister, and my objective shaving is to shave more hone less (which the vintage linen facilitates for a very long time), but when I do hone, I always test the "shaving" edge after stropping, never right off the stone.

I feel much the same Dave, always assumed the sparklies were little bits of foil or wire edge. I have only ever noticed them on non-slurry stones though. I also find testing the edge before stropping to be not very informative. Some few stones will manage well without stropping but others absolutely need stropping before testing and shaving. All are improved by it regardless. As far as the particles getting on the linen, I always give my razors a quick scrub with some hand soap after honing and before stropping.

I agree on the slurry - stones with slurry (or loose abrasive on a strop) seems to scrub the particles off right away.

I guess if there's a particle party and a no particle party, I'm part of the particle party (because I prefer the "clear water" or clear oil no slurry type finishers that do make that particles still on type of edge).