Bob et. al:

Results: much better shave this morning, and the stubble did not return on my way to work. I'm stubbly now, but then I'm typically stubbly by late morning. So, this is very good progress. Thank you!

What changed: 1. I only lathered where I was going to shave at the moment. 2. I dipped the tip of the brush into very hot water immediately before lathering, so each section of face was hot. 3. because I was lathering in patches, I could successfully stretch the skin by pulling on dry face with dry fingers 3. when going against the grain, I took special pains to keep the spine closer to the skin. 4. some areas got more than 2 passes. 5. rather than passing lather over the skin, I used the brush to scrub the shaving cream into the skin, and then used a lighter touch to lather from there. By the way: my badger is shedding!

Let's talk about honing: I failed to communicate, so I want to be super crystalline clear here. The person who sold me this razor did a phenomonal job of getting it shave ready. But I don't know how he did it because the spine was very subtley bent. I've worked on edge tools enough to know that you cannot straighten out a bend in hardened steel. It has to be ground out. I've also been around the edge-tool block to know if you're going to grind, used the coarsest you can find. If a guy comes to your door selling 8 grit sandpaper, buy it. I've also been around the block enough to know that 'learning' and 'adjusting' ones technique to accomodate a bend, bump, blister, belly in a tool that should be flat and/or straight is a fool's errand: fix it!!

So you guys don't think I'm an idiot here is what I did.

1. coated the spine and edge with machinists Prussian Blue.
2. Used the 140 grit atoma to grind the bevel and spine (flat to the stone) until there was at least 1 mm of 'flat' on the parts of the spine bent farthest from the stone. So one side, this 1mm band is in the middle, on the other, it appears at each end. Of course, the other areas of the spine have a much wider 'flat'. The dye-chem indicated when 'straightening and spine and setting the bevel' were 'done'.
3. From Atoma to "blue" dmt
4. From blue dmt to red dmt
5. From red dmt to green dmt
6. Retreat with Prussian blue
7. Take a few gentle strokes on a natural aoto to be sure that 3-5 did not release internal stresses in the steel that would cause it to 'spring' every so slightly of straight. This frequently happens when flat grinding hardened edge tools having cross sections greater than 1/8".
8. After confirmation, serious 'getting after it' on the aoto.
9. After Aoto, a botan slurry on a nakayama stone
10. Aftr botan slurry, a mejiro slurry on the nakayama
11. After mejiro slurry, a heavy "tomonagura' slurry on the nakayama. This was worked until the stone was almost dry.
12. From the pure slurry to clear water on nakayama, worked until is was almost dry.
13. from clear water on nakayama to polyester strop
14. from polyester strop to leather strop.
15. From leather strop to a big glass of Meritage and a good book (Whiteheads "Science and the Modern World")

Hopefully we are all now on the same page around the idea that I've spent enough time on the site wiki to not try to shave directly after sharpening my pocket knife on the sidewalk! :-)

By the way, I'm going to do steps 12, 13, 14, and 15 every night for while in order to accelerate my learning curve on how to consistently get a shave ready edge. I'll do this as a training exercise, not from the belief that it is necessary for a good shave.