Thread: My first honing experience - Wapi

My Wapi arrived today - thanks Wojtec!

I took my Arkansas stone, honed it for a while and switched to the pasted paddle strop and did 20-30 laps. Then, wehnt on to the linen side of my hairloom hanging strop and did 30 laps, and finished with 60 laps on the leather side.
How I tested. First I tried it on my arm hair and it went OK, so I got one of my chest hairs and rolled it over the blade and it popped pretty easily. As I shaved yesterday, I still don't have much of a long beard to try it, but I couldn't resist! I passed the blade below my chin and -how- it shaved what my old Dovo didn't shaved yesterday.

It got me wondering... This was too easy to be true. Are the Wapi's pre-honed? I must admit I haven't tried it before honing it.

Well, now I'm off to finding some new scales to the Wapi - that metal handle sure is heavy!

Congrats Leon! Good job my man. Woj does give them a bit of a honing before sending them out, but the rest was your doing. The Wapis do hone up nicely, don't they? For the money, they're the best darn razor value available anywhere! I re-scaled one of mine recently and the new lighter scales do feel nice. In the meantime, you will get used to the carbon scales if you keep using them. Nice work.

Mine were ready to shave when they arrvied.
I've got 3 5/8 and 9/16's wapi on the way. easy to hone and maintain. stamped or unstamped, imo the best bang for the buck. i'm partial to the stock scales on them. I like the heft of them.

I also found the wapis to be hone friendly, they somehow respond very well and still i havent overhoned one.

All i can say is that you did a great job, with all that honing and stropping is easy to mess up an edge...very...

Good job and keep us posted with your improvements.

I shaved with my Wapi yesterday and I looked like a teenager shaving his face for the first time. Man, the Wapi is S-H-A-R-P. Scary sharp. I never got so many nicks and cuts in my life! I think this may be due to the heavy scales that unbalance my hand when shaving, I don't know. So, in conclusion, my Wapi shave was close, too close... Definitely very different than my Dovo Best Quality that shaves OK and it's much more forgiving...

Hi Leon

I purchased a Wapi from ebay (from open_razor) and decided to keep it stock until I got a Norton 4000/8000 and started to learn honing. It came in pretty sharp but not honed. My father then took it and replaced the steel scales with some he made from mahogany and to be honest he has done a great job and so I am tempted to get it pro- honed as it looks and feels fantastic. I can’t wait to shave with it as it feels just right to me and I am interested to see if it fares as good or better as my Dovo.

The price of the Norton or similar stones means I will have to wait until Christmas until I can get hold of one (Rats!!)

Now I need to find someone from the UK that can, and is willing, to sell me a hone up for it!!

Ray

I'm glad to hear someone new say this. Honing is not a mysterious art. It's a very predictable process if you pay attention to what you're doing and use quality tools. Now try sharpening some other things! It's addictive. It can also make you popular. I take my hones to peoples' homes when I visit and sharpen their kitchen knives. They're astounded more often than not. They often say they were just going to throw the knives away and get new ones.