I shaved earlier this evening and it was without a doubt the best shave I've had. I've had pretty good shaves and a little bit better shaves. One day something was wrong and I just couldn't get into it. Everything felt wrong. The razor felt like it was the first time holding it, etc. Starting to ramble already. I think the success of this shave is due to some advice I got in another thread the other day. I was talking about my honing and/or stropping needing help. Someone suggested I start over honing the razor with a 1k stone. So I did. I used the 1k stone for quite a while. Lynn's DVD shows him using 5 strokes, 3, 2, sometimes only one stroke up and back when honing. I don't know how many strokes I did on the 1k but I bet it was around 50 passes. Then I moved to a 4k stone then 8k and then 16k. All were Shapton glass stones. Then I did a whole bunch of strokes on a bench strop with .5 micron CBN spray on it. Then I did a whole bunch of strokes on a bare kangaroo strop. Bench strops, no hanging strop. As soon as the razor touched my face I knew I had broken new ground. It was a real joy. I never thought I'd feel "joy" when shaving. Shaving was always a necessary evil. In fact, since I retired I grew a beard that I only groomed enough to not look really bad.

I want to thank all the people here who have given me all the good advice. I'm not going anywhere, I've still got a whol lot to learn but today was a milestone for me. Not only was the shave a pleasure, it was much closer after one pass than ever bevore. Normally I have places that I didn't get as smooth. The key was (I think) getting the razor honed better. Now I'll see how I do at maintaining the edge with stropping. I plan on using the same two strops. I haven't heard many people talk about using kangaroo hide for their strops but I got used to them for putting a really smooth refined edge on knives. This is a wonderful last step. Bare kangaroo strop. They are also good when using sprays under 1 micron. I've read where people get up to 50 shaves between honings. I thik that is probably after they have more experience than I do. We'll see how I do.


Jack
PS
Does anyone shave twice as a normal routine? I think I read this or saw it in a video that someone always shaves then shaves again. Maybe he has a really tough beard.