Thread: How long does a razor stay sharp?

My professionally honed blade is still giving me really comfortable shaves with nothing more than a good stropping in between. I'm still using multiple razors every day, comparing my honing efforts to it, so it's not getting a full shave every day, but pretty close.

The blade is a red-injun #101 spike point. Any idea how long I can expect this to last before it needs a touch up on the hone? I'm tempted to stop using it all together except when I need to do direct comparisons just to prevent it from getting dull.

I know that the time window on such things is really variable, but just a general range will do... one, two, maybe even three months of daily use?

Really, really, variable but the general consensus is some type of re-touch at around 3 months...
This might only be paste or an ultra high git hone.....

My Red Iinjun hasn't seen a hone in about 70 shaves now and its next bad shave will be the first. Of course it seems like I hone a lot less often than the majority of guys here.

A lot of this depends on the quality and frequency of your stropping as well; improper stropping can cause the blade to dull prematurely. I would say an average 2-4 month window before a touch up; I use a fine grit pasted strop on mine when they start to tug a bit.

With proper stropping, a very long time, I would say 90-100 shaves. I use six razors in rotation, and have not had to rehone any of them for the past 8 months.

In my short experience so far, 20 - 50 shaves is what I have found depending on the razor

I've found after about 15 shaves the comfort level starts to deteriorate though the razor will still give a bbs shave for quite a while after that. Some razors though will go much longer. My TI damascus hasn't been honed in probably 100 shaves.

your responses have been very informative.

I notice if the blade is anything less than VERY keen so I typically get about a dozen shaves out of a razor before I want to touch it up again. I could get a dozen or more, but why when I've got the tools to bring it back quickly.

X

Isn't using a fine paste on a strop touching it up? If you are talking about not having to do any sharpening at all then after about 2 weeks the performance of the blade starts to drops,for me. This is a razor with very good steel and is honed up to 16K with hones, then pasted. I use to sharpen a razor with a 4 sided strop and then I could only get about 7 days out of a razor before touching it up. Since going to mostly hones to sharpen, then I get about 2 weeks and even then it is just a slight performance drop. I would suspect that using some of the more exotic hones would lead to even a longer time between touch ups.


Take care,
Richard