Quote Originally Posted by JHBBlade View Post
A bit off topic,
but the most significant carry-over I've experienced is from straight shaving back to DE shaving. After about a year of straight shaving, I find if I use a DE, the skill and knowledge gained from straights makes for sublime DE shaves.

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That has been my experience also. Nothing teaches you what a light touch and using the right angle like a straight razor.

And now back to our regular programing.

I'd have to agree with previous posters in that it is all sharpening be it knives, straight razors, chisels or scissors. That is where the similarity starts and ends. Some of the skills learned in honing straight razors carry over into sharpening the others but the techniques use are different.

There have been posters here that were new to straight razors and assumed that since they could sharpen a knife well they would find honing a straight razor a breeze to do. A surprising number have come back to ask what they were doing wrong honing since they had difficulty getting a straight razor shave ready sharp. I'd guess that if I were to get as serious about knife sharpening as I am with my straight razors I'd have difficulties getting the results I want with knives.

With reference to stainless steel straight razors of which I have a few. I have not encountered a problem with them taking and holding an edge as compared to regular carbon steel ones. My guess is that stainless steel knives that can't hold an edge were made from the wrong stainless steel alloy and/or were not tempered correctly.

Bob