Thread: My Learning curve - so far....

Hi Folks,
I started a thread in the Introductions section, but since the subject has extended beyond that, I figured I would start a new thread.
To recap:
Got a straight-razor shaving set from my wife for Christmas that included a Gold Dollar 208 that was supposed to be shave ready. Not so much it seems, but perhaps I rolled the edge in my heavy handed attempts at stropping. I worked on the edge and technique a bit and got some improvement, but still wasn't convinced the razor was sharp. Got myself a Dovo shavette and gave that a shot - was able to shave pretty darn well with it with only very minor bodily injury.
From this exercise I concluded that need for further skill notwithstanding, shaving with the GD in its present condition was like pushing a rope. So, somewhere along the way, I decided to order a couple of truly shave ready razors from WhippedDog.com and I am currently eagerly awaiting a delivery from the mailman.

That pretty much summarizes my voyage to this point - oh, except for some kind regards and good contacts with local straight shavers. Great group of people that I am looking forward to meeting up with.

Since then, I used the shavette a couple of times with substantial success and a very good shave which boosts my confidence that I can do this. Under the "what have I got to loose" premise, I decided to do some work on the GD. After a bit of research and experimentation, I concluded that the GD needed the heel ground down a bit so it was out of the way. I pulled out the Dremel tool and had at it. I buffed it a bit when done, but only had red rouge handy and didn't worry too much about appearance for now. I can't say my modification is beautiful, but the heel is now significantly more out of the way. At that point, I flattened out my stones started out at 4000 and worked up to 12000 with relatively light strokes (circles and longer strokes). I then did some careful stropping - about 100 round trips on my wood backed strop and called it a day. End result was a razor that could cut a bit of arm hair above the skin, but couldn't pass any hanging hair test that I could figure out (shavette passes easily every which a way).

This AM, I did another 25 round trips on the strop as lightly a I could manage. I notice that I now hear a bit of a swishing sound on the strop. (Is that good?) After some hot wet towels, pre-shave oil and my best lather so far, I gave the GD another chance. Can't claim success yet, but I actually got significant improvement! No cuts, no burn but a significant amount of beard shaved. Two mostly full passes, mostly WTG and a bit of XTG (my face hair grows in many directions) and not much attempt at the cheek line. Left me with a relatively semi-passable shave. Good enough that I didn't bother to clean up with another razor. So it looks like I am getting there. Still looking forward to the mail this evening!

I have some CrOx paste and a piece of flat balsa. Should I try to get the blade a bit sharper with that? Other advice?

Jerry

Originally Posted by Jerrybass

Hi Folks,
I started a thread in the Introductions section, but since the subject has extended beyond that, I figured I would start a new thread.
To recap:
Got a straight-razor shaving set from my wife for Christmas that included a Gold Dollar 208 that was supposed to be shave ready. Not so much it seems, but perhaps I rolled the edge in my heavy handed attempts at stropping. I worked on the edge and technique a bit and got some improvement, but still wasn't convinced the razor was sharp. Got myself a Dovo shavette and gave that a shot - was able to shave pretty darn well with it with only very minor bodily injury.
From this exercise I concluded that need for further skill notwithstanding, shaving with the GD in its present condition was like pushing a rope. So, somewhere along the way, I decided to order a couple of truly shave ready razors from WhippedDog.com and I am currently eagerly awaiting a delivery from the mailman.

That pretty much summarizes my voyage to this point - oh, except for some kind regards and good contacts with local straight shavers. Great group of people that I am looking forward to meeting up with.

Since then, I used the shavette a couple of times with substantial success and a very good shave which boosts my confidence that I can do this. Under the "what have I got to loose" premise, I decided to do some work on the GD. After a bit of research and experimentation, I concluded that the GD needed the heel ground down a bit so it was out of the way. I pulled out the Dremel tool and had at it. I buffed it a bit when done, but only had red rouge handy and didn't worry too much about appearance for now. I can't say my modification is beautiful, but the heel is now significantly more out of the way. At that point, I flattened out my stones started out at 4000 and worked up to 12000 with relatively light strokes (circles and longer strokes). I then did some careful stropping - about 100 round trips on my wood backed strop and called it a day. End result was a razor that could cut a bit of arm hair above the skin, but couldn't pass any hanging hair test that I could figure out (shavette passes easily every which a way).

This AM, I did another 25 round trips on the strop as lightly a I could manage. I notice that I now hear a bit of a swishing sound on the strop. (Is that good?) After some hot wet towels, pre-shave oil and my best lather so far, I gave the GD another chance. Can't claim success yet, but I actually got significant improvement! No cuts, no burn but a significant amount of beard shaved. Two mostly full passes, mostly WTG and a bit of XTG (my face hair grows in many directions) and not much attempt at the cheek line. Left me with a relatively semi-passable shave. Good enough that I didn't bother to clean up with another razor. So it looks like I am getting there. Still looking forward to the mail this evening!

I have some CrOx paste and a piece of flat balsa. Should I try to get the blade a bit sharper with that? Other advice?

Jerry

Before I say ANYTHING else, my recommendation is that you keep every razor away from balsa wood strops. Far, far, far away.

Now for the record I'm a newbie also. I've got one year of straight razor shaving, honing and stropping under my belt. I still consider myself a newbie. About the balsa wood. I am very good at sharpening knives and while balsa strops have their place in a knife world the balsa all by itself is much too coarse for a straight razor. I polished a knife bevel once and then used a balsa strop with .5 micron or .25 micron spray on it and it destroyed the mirror finish. The ultra fine spray was wasted because of the coarseness of the strop (balsa). If anyone with more experience than me says to use balsa give it a try. But I don't think anyone will.

Now what I've learned in the past year. Don't spend a lot of time with your stones (hones). While honing is essential in my mind it takes a back seat for newbies compared to learning to strop. Here's why. I got one of the $41 razors from whippeddog.com a year or so ago. It came very sharp. Much better shaves than I was getting from the razor I was honing which is a Boker gifted to me. So I was about 2 months into straight razors and after I stropped the $41 razor it was just like the one I had been using. My stropping skill wasn't good enough is my conclusion. I see this now that I'm a little more experienced. Another conclusion is I should have spent more time learning to strop and not so much practice time learning to hone. If you can strop well you can keep a shave ready razor very sharp for months. I say that because the first week of November, after a year of my own honing/stropping and shaving I bought a Dovo from SRD that Lynn honed. The shave from this razor was night and day better. THIS is a shave ready razor. Now that I've gotten several months of stropping practice I have been able to keep that razor super sharp and I'm not considering honing it any time soon. I've been reading where people have been saying they use the same razor for months, maybe a year before it needs to be re-honed. Until now I didn't imagine that was possible. So, if you've only been honing and stropping since Christmas I suggest you work primarily on stropping. Don't even think about honing right now. You'll be happier faster just stropping. I say that based on my experience. So that's just one guy and I still consider myself a newbie. What I shave with now is the Boker that I hone and strop and the Dovo that I've only stropped. Since the Dovo is still shaving great I'm assuming my stropping skill has developed considerably. The Boker shaves real good now but still trails the Dovo a bit. I think (don't know) this is because I need to get it a bit sharper using hones before I can get it to the point Lynn had the Dovo when I got it. Not that I will get my skills equal to Lynn's any time soon. I'm thinking maybe in a few years but that doesn't worry me. Anything done great takes lots of time and practice to master.

If you don't mind I'll make a suggestion for your two new razors. Use one and only strop between shaves. Keep the other one stored so in 3 months or so you can use it compared to the razors you've been honing and/or stropping. For me it's important to have a comparison. How else will I know how "shave ready" my razors are. I just remembered something. The guy at whippeddog will mail you a used razor for you to hone and strop to the best of your ability and send it back to him for evaluation. He charges $15 I think. I did that and his evaluation of my honing was the edge was like the razor had been honed and then used several times. Still shavable but maybe to the point of re-honing needed was my interpretation of what he said. That was 10-11 months ago I think. Since you have already used stones on your GD keep using hones on it for practice. Use the new razor that you shave with and only strop it between shaves. When you strop make sure you force yourself to go slow. Don't worry about the videos of people stropping and you can't even see their hand moving. When it comes to the "light touch" everyone talks about that takes a lot of practice. How much practice will depend on how fast you pick up new things. Personally, I never pick up new things real fast. Another thing about the way I usually learn something is I work and work at it with not much improvement and then suddenly all the work seems to kick in and the improvement is dramatic. That's just me though.

When I say "practice" I mean sit there watching tv and stropping. You will need to pay more attention to the stropping though. Strop for a few minutes as if it were between shaves. Two to four minutes. Take a break and do it again in a few minutes. If I were to practice by stropping 100 passes only between shaves I'd have never gotten as good as I am now, and I'm not great. Competent I think but still need work. I bought two razors on ebay for almost nothing and I use them for practicing. The new razor you use shouldn't be used to practice. Only do the 50-100 passes between shaves and that's all. WHat strops do you have? Do you have a leather and a second strop of linen or felt or webbing? That's another thing I've done with the Dovo. I've used a webbing strop with .5 micron diamond spray (the stuff on SRD) every 10 shaves or so and then the leather strop. I have the kangaroo strop also. Either the leather or the kangaroo work fine IMO. I prefer using the roo because it's softer but for the moment I can't say it does a better job. The quality of the edge is controlled by our ability, not the strop we use. That's assuming you have good quality strops.

That's it from me. I won't give advice for honing or stropping. I'll leave the details about that to the pros. The only thing I really want to convey is honing and stropping both take quite a bit of time to become very proficient and not to get discouraged any more than possible. Also, that stropping is far more important to learn instead of honing. Honing is essential for me because I want to maintain my own razors. But if I can keep a razor shaving great for six months or more without hones sending it to Lynn for honing wouldn't be a problem. His ability is worth every penny. People on this forum always emphasize stropping over honing. I've come to see why that is. Stropping is the key to consistent, smooth shaves. Still practice honing a little and by the time you need a razor re-honed you will be better with hones. Hopefully anyway. Hope some of this helps. Keep at it and good luck. Don't forget I'm still a newbie too and anything I say should be taken with that in mind.

Jack

Welcome to SRP. Jerry Bass: Congratulations it sounds like your well on the road to becoming proficient at shaving and maintaining a S.R. Soon the S.R addiction will start and you'll be shopping for Ralf Aust Classic S.R.

First know that while Gold Dollars can be made to shave, they are fraught with problems most novice honers are not prepared to deal with.
So if you want to hone it, you may have to repair it first.

Post some photos of the razor on both sides as close to the bevel and edge as possible and the stabilizer.

What brand of stones do you have?

Do you have magnification?

What kind of strop do you have?

What brand of Chrome Oxide do you have?

Is the spine and edge flat?

Don't give up. I faced a mountain of problems when starting. It *will* come together.

Answer Euclid440's questions as best you can and I'm sure that you will receive correct instruction.

HOLD FAST, brother.

Sounds like it is coming together and for a fist try at honing not to bad. Generally we recommend you don't go past the 8k mark while learning to hone and that your razor should be shave ready and passing hht etc at that level consistently before you move up in grit. Balsa can work as a medium for paste just make sure to sand it smooth and make sure no grit etc is left behind. It will take practice but you should have a razor to shave with and for comparison soon and it should only get better for you. Good luck

Thanks for the advice folks, and Jack, thanks for the long thoughtful post.

My current philosophy with the GD, is that it is something worth playing with to see if I can use it to help learn it all, stropping, honing and shaving - assuming I can get the first two to work. With all respect for your advice, since I am not working this week and can only shave so much, figured I might as well work on the other skills. At this point, I consider the DG something of a burner to help out my skills and no big loss if I damage it .... again!

With all that in mind, and again on the theory of "what the heck" knowing I have sharp razors coming, I decided to give the CrOx on balsa a shot. Don't have any diamond paste or spray. No chance I'll try anything but careful stropping - for a while on a quality sharp razor. But, I did 15 light pressure round trips on the balsa after making a paste from the crox stick I have and spreading a thin coat over the whole surface (well flattened on my stationary sander). I then did a total of around 75 strops round trip on my wood backed leather strop. _ Well, much to my surprise, I got a pretty respectable shave out of her this morning. Very clear improvement over yesterday. Nobody more shocked than me! Did a pretty good cycle of WTG and another pass attacking the weird grain as best I could figure out how. Not the best shave ever, but not bad at all. Pretty pleased at this point!

I did receive the two razors from Whipped Dog this afternoon and took a brief look at them. Very pleased with my purchase! They are clearly very nicely sharpened - much more than my GD and perfect for my current needs. I plan, for now, to keep one as is for reference and the other will be my daily shaver with only careful stropping. I highly recommend Larry at Whipped Dog. He done me OK!

Per Elucid :
"First know that while Gold Dollars can be made to shave, they are fraught with problems most novice honers are not prepared to deal with. So if you want to hone it, you may have to repair it first." I did lots of reading online about them and quickly realized that mostly they can be made to work, but some rework is likely needed. Mine clearly needed the shoulder (I guess that is the stabilizer) close to the hinge is in the way of honing and may be causing a twisting during stropping. That is why I ground down that part. The blade will also hit the scales when closing if not careful, so I have to figure out how to repair that.

"Post some photos of the razor on both sides as close to the bevel and edge as possible and the stabilizer." I'll see what I can do and post later. My grinding job ain't pretty, but the stabilizer is not much of a problem now.

"What brand of stones do you have?" I have a DMT diamond plate that is coarser than my King 1200 waterstone. Also have a Norton 4000/8000 combo, a 6000 (I think) King and a 12000 stone of unknown brand. Also have a combo oil stone and a number of other diamond plates, slipstones, etc. I used to do lots of woodturning and woodworking, so my shop is pretty well equipped, and I have done lots of sharpening of knives, chisels, blades, etc. but nothing as delicate as a straight razor until playing with this GD. Currently passing part of my time doing some finishing and building of electric guitars. BTW, over the years I have taken a several sharpening classes including a couple of hours of instruction from a few rather famous world class woodturners. Lots of simple things can be mysterious until you spend time thinking about them, and it all helps with the razor, but I obvious am nowhere near competent in this arena yet. Oh yea, and I am a bit of an anal retentive engineer by education.

"Do you have magnification?" Not much - a good 10X loupe and a so-so lighted 10X magnifier and a few misc. cheap magnifiers. I have been looking at the edges with the magnification I have, and it is good enough to see if I am getting from 4k to 6K or 8K without leaving much trace of the coarser grit, but it would be cool to see a better picture of the edge. Gotta put on my thinking cap to figure out how to get use of a decent microscope.

"What kind of strop do you have?" I have a 2" leather strop that came with the razor and is of questionable quality. I am a bit afraid of it. I made a couple of strops that are about 3 inches wide and a bit over a foot or so long by gluing some leather to a flat board and sanding it flat. I have been using that mostly. Also have some balsa wood that I used a little strip of for the CrOx I spoke of earlier.

"What brand of Chrome Oxide do you have?" Not sure. I have had it for probably 30 years as part of a set that included white, green, black and red/brown. I used some of it in the past to polish edges and actually to polish really hard wood that was being turned on the lathe (a trick I learned from Del Stubbs in a woodturning course).

"Is the spine and edge flat?" It is now - actually the edge is pretty good, the spine had a bit of a bump that appeared to have been worked on a little. I did a little more work on the spine to remove the little bump and polish it up a little. Appears to be pretty flat now, but I think that is worth a double check since I mostly focused on getting rid of the remains of the bump.

Eddy - gotta work on that hanging hair thing. Still haven't managed that but intend to try it on the razors I received from Whipped Dog today and see where they are for reference. I was able to readily cut hair from my arm hair about 1/4 inch or more pretty well with the GD so I feel like it is drastically better than when I received it. Quite satisfying - but not content yet. I'll probably keep working on the GD a bit just for fun (I actually like sharpening things when I am in the mood and have time on my hands), but I am excited about having a quality razor with a sharp blade from Whipped Dog in hand for use in "honing" my shaving skills.

Thanks for everyone's support and advice. It is truly appreciated, and I can't wait to get together with some locals soon.

Jerry

So it sounds like you have all you need, except for a new strop, some quality Chrome Oxide and possibly a bit more magnification and a true high grit finishing stone, for now the 8k will work just fine.

First lap you stones with you Diamond Plate, lap under running water or in a pond, I use a plastic shoe box. If you don’t you can ruin you diamond plate. Mark a grid with a pencil and remove the grid a couple of times and bevel or round the face edge. You will probably want to have separate stones for razors as knives and chisel can tear up a stone face.

Your 12k is probably not close to 12K, so for now do not use it. You can grit rate it by comparing the stria it produces to a known grit synthetic stria, start with 8K. For now…don’t use it. First learn the honing mechanics, there is plenty of time for playing with natural stones after you know you can hone. It will just confuse the issue by adding an unknown.

Make a new strop from any smooth leather, 3X12 inches or a bit longer, glued to a flat piece of wood, I use MDF. The sanded leather will probably contain imbedded grit from the sand paper, all of the grit is much larger than the grit of the finish stone. One errant grit can ruin your edge, why take a chance?

You sound like a capable guy where gluing up a new strop should not be a big deal.

So first of all understand that knife sharpening is different from razor honing because a razor must be keen and comfortable. A piece of meat or wood does not care if the knife or chisel has a chip or burr, your face does.

It is not just about sharp.

The most important skill to learn is the ability to repeatable be able to know when the bevel is set, (the bevels are flat, and meet COMPLETELY in a straight edge).

There are many way, the easiest, and most foolproof and guaranteed repeatable is the visual test, by looking straight down on the edge with magnification and light,

here is a video of this

.

You will hear a lot about hair test and while it is cool it is simply an unreliable test because the sample is so small. You are only testing one micron of the edge at a time, how long will it take to test the WHOLE edge?

You want simple, quick and absolutely repeatable.

If you see ANY shiny reflections, the bevels are either not meeting (not set) or you have a chip(s).

Your Chrome Oxide is not pure Chrome Oxide and can ruin an edge, it is Green Paste and may contain little or no Chrome Oxide and unknown grit of unknown grit size. We want simple, consistent and repeatable results.

A stick of quality Razor Chrome Oxide or small quantity of powder is inexpensive 10-15 bucks and a lifetime supply, keep it simple and easy do not introduce any unknown variables, (do you sence a theme here?) Good Chrome Oxide should be .5um about 30k grit. SRD sells a quality stick.

Now look at your GD edge, then look at your new, hopefully still un-stropped razors. It is not unusual for a novice to strop a perfectly shave ready razor and ruin the edge before it was ever shaved with.

What you see will determine the next course of action.

For magnification a loupe from ebay is about 5 bucks for a 30 or 40x. You will see Gssixgun use one in his vids and even says he only buys these cheap ones. The 40x with light are all you should need. +1 to the crox. The stick from SRD, the hand America paste from Star Shaving or powder from Kremer pigments in Germany are all quality crox.

link for kremer- Chrome Oxide Green

Great advice guys. I have had good experiences with all of the sharpening materials I have before, but no doubt this is an area where there are clearly some potentially unacceptable unknowns. I actually have another strop I already made that is thinner and longer(about 2 inches by 16 inches) that I didn't sand, but found it a little harder to use than the three incher (which had a few small leather defects and an inadvertent dab of glue - thus the sanding). Can't say I have seen any visual evidence on the blade of any stray pieces of grit, but on thinking about it, I bet they are there - could even be deeply embedded waiting to show their ugly heads at an inopportune time. It is a beauty though, so I am going to work on salvaging it - but will pass on using it on a razor blade for now until I figure out how to assure it is clear of any sanding residue. Looks like time for a bit more shopping to get a better loupe and some crox. All that said, I am feeling like the GD is working its way into being a keeper and quite usable.

Tried to take some pix this AM of the GD through a large magnifier, but the photos don't really tell any story, so I'll spare you the post. Examining a new razor edge from Larry with the GD under 10X doesn't show much difference. But in good light with limited magnification I can look down both edges and see no

I first used some coarse diamond stones to do the flattening and then used some 1000 grit wet and dry Norton on marble to initially flatten the stones. I followed by using the finer DMT diamond plate under running water in my bathroom (Shhhhhh..... Don't tell my wife) to finish them up. I feel pretty confident of their flatness and freedom of residue. Used pencil marks at all stages to verify flatness. The 12000 stone was a gift a few years ago but appears to at least be significantly harder and finer than 8000. Hasn't seen much use and was pretty flat to start out - didn't take much to get it really flat.

Thanks much for the link to the video on sharpness tests. I always use the "sight down the edge" test regardless of what I sharpen (possible exception for all tests is certain woodturning tools straight off the grinder where you might use a wire edge to do the cutting or not worry since it will disappear as soon as it touches wood). Both the GD and the new razor pass with flying colors except for right at the curve of the area I ground down, and right at the curve of the tip on the new razor - perhaps Larry rounded it to keep me from cutting my ear off! Also couldn't spot a wire edge on either razor. The pin test was a new one for me, but I tried it out and couldn't find any wire edge with it either. Your point about the hht is so well taken I didn't even try it (actually, forgot and greased the razors up before I remembered, so perhaps another time).

Oh yea, back to shaving, I used one of the razors from Whipped Dog this morning and had pretty good success. I would say better than the GD for sure, but I did get three nicks. They were all in problem areas that I probably shouldn't have attempted yet. (Come on, admit it - you did the same thing ). I also used some Prosoro pre-shave and shave soap. Liking the pre-shave, but had some trouble getting a good lather with the soap. More areas to work on!

Progress!
Jerry