Thread: How many shaves before honing?

Originally Posted by ScreaminZ

How many shaves before honing?

About the same as the number of licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop.

Originally Posted by mparker762

About the same as the number of licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop.

A-one, a-two, a-three ... CRUNCH

A-three.

When I say flat, I mean flat on a table. That is usually a little easier when starting out. Since your already using a touch of pressure I'd say your doing fine. A little pressure is good, sometimes, I think.

I use the linen regularly, but not everytime. I think the objective is to figure out what is going wrong, more than continuing doing the same thing over and over again, even if what your doing seems to match the conventional wisdom you've read. If I tell you to use more pressure that would be sort of irresponsible since I can't determine how much pressure your using now and we can't evaluate your pressure even if we both agree on "light pressure". Some strops are "hard" and some are "soft", so adding pressure could be the worst thing you could do. It might make more sense to simply add something to the leather to make it "draw" more effectively. Its like the leather has to have some kind of "tension", friction, or "catch" within the hide of the leather in order to be effective. You can either do something to improve this "tension" or you can add pressure. Obviously if the strop sags or bends though your going to do more damage than benefit.

I can only tell you that I've achieved more bad shaves from inadequate pressure than from rolling an edge. My best shaves usually involve significant pressure on a hard paddle strop followed by several shaves using very light pressure when stropping on a hanging strop afterward, and being open to the idea of using linen to get lots of shaves from a single honing.

What I imagine is enough pressure to smooth out the bevel and align the striations initially and then just enough pressure from there to keep the fin aligned. After a while I have to restretch out the fin to get it to work again; and I use a little pressure in order to do that.

Additionally, I get about 3 good shaves from a single honing and after that I have to let the razor rest for about 48 hours before shaving again . . . if I choose not to strop the razor. Since I get two, maybe three shaves, without any stropping, I might assume that your not getting very good stropping action off your strop.

Originally Posted by ScreaminZ

Thanks for the information. I will go ahead and order a "real" strop from TM after my next paycheck. Is the linen something that I should use regularly, like a few passes on that before the leather every time before shaving? Or is it just an occasional thing?

I do get some draw off of my strop. I don't know how much to expect because this is the only one I've ever used. I'm not quite sure what you mean by stropping with it flat. I have the strop hanging from the wall and I hold the other end to where it's taught. I then lay the razor down so that the spine and edge both touch the strop before making a pass. I do not change the pressure at any time during the stropping. Are you saying there's a benefit to doing so? Also, how much pressure should I be applying while stropping? I apply a fairly light pressure, not too much more than the weight of the blade, though. Should I be pressing harder?

Thanks again for the info.