Thread: First shave with classifieds razor!

Originally Posted by AusTexShaver

It's normal for the sound to be different. Most strops have a slight grain which runs just like your whiskers. When you are stropping with the grain it makes a different sound than when going against the grain. In addition to that there's the doppler effect so unless you are standing directly in the middle of the strop it will sound different going away than it does coming towards you.

Man, the Doppler effect has nothing to do with stropping, unless you are stropping at several hundred miles per hour.... Please post vids if you are.

Originally Posted by joke1176

Man, the Doppler effect has nothing to do with stropping, unless you are stropping at several hundred miles per hour.... Please post vids if you are.

I'd do that but I'd have to slow down my normal speed some.

You're absolutely correct...doppler has nothing to do with stropping. It's an auditory illusion and has nothing to do with speed...only that a constant tone is moving toward or away from you. Hit a tuning fork some time and make a stropping motion and see what happens.

Thanks everyone so far! I am going to try attempt number 2 tonight!

Tonight I really concentrated on doing very slow meticulous stropping and doing a very good prep. Again I did multiple hot towels including one with lather.

The shave was better! I managed to get 2 ATG passes and 1 XTG on just the cheeks. The shave was better and I did not nick my self but the pulling was insane! I tried a lower angle (spine closer to cheek) and it might of helped a little but the first pass was the most painful pass I have ever had besides the first time when I tried to shave around my chin area.

This time I almost finished the chin area on the first pass but couldn't so I finsihed it with the DE and then relathered and hot toweled for my secone pass.

The second pass I did another WTG on my whole face and managed not to nick myself although it was still pretty tough but not nearly as bad as the first pass.

The XTG on my cheeks wasn't bad although my XTG wasn't truly XTG (more of a Diagonal W/X).

All around my face was hurtin' a bit even though my skin wasn't razor burned. It is actually funny that the only places a had a bit of razor burn were around my mouth and chin where I had to clean up with the DE.

Although I am still not convinced my razor is as sharp as I would like it, I must admit that I am suprised that it was a fair amount better than the first time!

On a bad note I noticed a few different shiny spots when I look at the edge of my razor and realized that after doing a light TNT that the blade drags significantly on those spots (one is in the middle of the blade and there are several near the toe). Is it possible that they can be from shaving or did I hit the razor with something (I don't remeber hitting it and it would have had to been multiple times.) Can I still shave with it?

Sorry this post is huge, thank you ahead of time to anyone that answers!!

I took some pictures to show the reflection of the bad parts of the edge. Sorry for the quality but I had to take them with my phone.

Your pictures are very out of focus so it's hard to tell, but I think that's a huge chip after the shiny spots.
Regardless of this, I wouldn't shave with a razor that has sliced through a thumbnail - at that point it most certainly stops meeting my shave ready standard.

From the reflections it looks like your edge is wavy. How are you wiping the lather off your blade? The metal at the edge is very thin, almost like a foil. If you wipe the side of the blade on anything harder that the 'foil' edge it will bend and/or chip. Wipe the lathre off the blade on the back of your hand or on something in your hand and be delicate. I wipe onto a paper towel I hild in my hand just to keep my hands from getting slippery. When I first started shaving I wiped my blade on a paper tower over the edge of the sink counter and the blade looked like your pic if I didn't have my glasses on. You need to straighten your edge back to flat. Stropping on linen may help. You may need to do this several times and waot a while inbetween sessions. This may release the stress in metal and allow edge toreturn to natural state. Caution, chipping of edge may result if metal is too fatigued. Hopefully others will offer some more advice on this.

On the blades I had this issue with the linen stropping and honing brought the edges back to flat and they all shave good now.

Now that you say it I believe the edge could be wavy. I was using a cloth to wipe off the shaving soap, I must have been a little too rough wiping it off. Also in the above post I meant TPT not TNT, I realize that these are quite different and I will edit the post ASAP.