Thread: Its all about the water...

Originally Posted by ShotgunLuckey

If you notice any build up of minerals on your razor, you may want to do a final rinse of 25% vinegar and 75% distilled water and dry throughly.

That should definitely not be the final rinse. If you want to use vinegar to remove mineral build-up, which I have a hard time imagining occurring in the first place, then you would need to follow that vinegar rinse with a plain water rinse to remove all vinegar residue. Failing to do that would likely lead to a rusty blade.

Thanks for the tips! I'll definately use distilled water to hone, and then every once and a while give it a rinse with the distilled/vinegar combo, and then a final distilled rinse. In the meantime, I'll make sure everything is totally, totally dry.

Concerning the vinegar wash. There was somebody here recently that used vinegar to clean the razors blade and it turned black from the acids. My recommendation is not to use vinegar, diluted or not!

Ouch! That's upsetting! Then I suppose a nice, good rinse with distilled water every now and again will be all I'll do.

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

Concerning the vinegar wash. There was somebody here recently that used vinegar to clean the razors blade and it turned black from the acids. My recommendation is not to use vinegar, diluted or not!

Sorry, I guess I spoke out of turn....I hadn't heard of that happening before

Interesting comments. I had thought about using distilled water for making foam, but a decent brush and shaving cream made that unnecessary. However, I never even considered the effect of hard water on the blade/hone.

Wouldn't alcohol be good for the final rinse of the blade? That would dispell any remaining water. I've seen people dip theirs in a glass of (rubbing?) alcohol. I was also wondering if aerosol isopropyl alcohol whould be a good idea, making sure it stayed off the scales of course.

Originally Posted by Rajagra

Interesting comments. I had thought about using distilled water for making foam, but a decent brush and shaving cream made that unnecessary. However, I never even considered the effect of hard water on the blade/hone.

Wouldn't alcohol be good for the final rinse of the blade? That would dispell any remaining water. I've seen people dip theirs in a glass of (rubbing?) alcohol. I was also wondering if aerosol isopropyl alcohol whould be a good idea, making sure it stayed off the scales of course.

Back in grad school, we used deionized / distilled water to give our glassware a final rinse. It kept the hard water spots away. You could do the same with a squeeze bottle of distiled water. Clean your blade in tap water then give it a rinse from the squeeze bottle. Wipe it dry and you're done.

Dave

Great call. Ive actually got one of the squirt bottles filled with distilled water that I use for my humidor, so piece of cake.

About the alcohol thing: When I worked on jet-engines alcohol was not even permitted in the workshop because it contains a few % water and it is hygroscopic, so it will actually cause moisture from the surrounding air to settle on the surface. We only used isopropanol because it doesn't contain water.