Thread: Clueless

I'm new to this world and I completed my 3rd shave with my Dovo Special tonight. No nicks but the shave did not feel smooth. When I was done, my skin was extremely raw. Feels like its scraping my skin. There so much I've been reading that I'm starting to get confused. I bought my razor from Classic Shaving and it stated Presharpened. Is this sharpened by Lynn or does it need honing?

sounds like a technique issue... tells us about your prep and blade angle... you really want to keep the spine less than 2 spine thicknesses away from the face.. too steep off a blade angle is a major factor in discomfort

Originally Posted by njcutthroat

I bought my razor from Classic Shaving and it stated Presharpened. Is this sharpened by Lynn or does it need honing?

Presharpened at classic has not been honed by Lynn. That is an extra honing service. Unless it is stated that the extra honing service is included, the razor has only not been expertly honed to shave readiness

actually, i believe these days classicshaving uses lynn and chris for their honing and the presharpened indicates that. however when in doubt ask the vendor. none of us here can tell you for sure what has happened to this razor between it left dovo and arrived at your place.

Thank you gugi, I stand corrected. This from the classicshaving.com website (this morning):

As a customer service, the razors in our Thiers-Issard inventory labeled "PRESHARPENED" have been additionally hand honed in the USA by a ClassicShaving Sharpening Expert before being returned to our inventory. The razors without this decription have been sharpened by Thiers-Issard in France and have not received additional sharpening. Most of our "PRESHARPENED" razors may be ordered, by phone or email, without the additional sharpening, at a 15.00 reduced cost.

It passes the HHT and if I slide the blade across my thumb nail it's even and slightly starts to slice into the nail. I can whip up a good lather. I use a hot towel and then rinse my face with hot water right before I put the cream on. I guess by process of elimination, it has to be the angle. I believe I'm going too steep. Practice, Practice, Practice. Long strokes or short?

Thanks for everyone's help!

Please don't slide a shave ready blade across your thumbnail !

Short strokes. And you said it, practice, practice, practice!

I thought the thumb nail was one of the tests. The internet is filled with too much information and you can only hope you're getting good information. Thanks again, I won't do the nail test.

The Thumbnail test is only done at the 4K stage of honing. If it's done anytime after that, you have lost (ruined) the edge. The razor will need to be re-honed!

Sorry,

Steve

Originally Posted by njcutthroat

I thought the thumb nail was one of the tests. The internet is filled with too much information and you can only hope you're getting good information. Thanks again, I won't do the nail test.

The thumbnail test is usually reserved for duller blades to look for blade damage, at least that is how I use it.

From this excellent article in the wiki
http://straightrazorpalace.com/srpwi...ests_explained:

• This test can damage the shaving edge so it should only be done on an edge that you intend to keep honing, or at least very carefully to protect your thumb as well as the quality of the edge. It’s primary purpose is to determine how far, and sometimes in which direction, the edge has gone.
  
• This test seems the least useful to me since it’s the most dangerous to the shaving edge and the results are also the most vague to interpret.
  
• I only use TNT to diagnose micro chips because I hate this test. It feels to me exactly how fingernails on a chalk board sounds. That could be partially responsible for why I can’t interpret as fine a result from it as the other Standard Sharpness Tests. I had to be honest about that.