2nd shave...blade over stropped?

Second shave down - thousands to go! So far, I'm really enjoying straight shaves. Bought a Dovo Best Qual that came 'shave ready'. Near as I could tell, it was ready to go. Gave it the HHT before my first shave and it failed. My wife's hair is VERY fine. I mean very, so I just chalked it up to that. (I'm bald, otherwise I'd have tried one of mine:)). However, the edge felt great via both thumnail and thumb pad test. So away we went. Not a bad shave on the sides and cheeks. Stropped it, and put it up.
Pulled out my razor tonight and stropped it again. Edge felt fine, so here come the lather. Was able to do my whole face this time. However, it didn't feel nearly as smooth as the first one did. And it shouldn't have. I got to looking very closely at the edge and can see a very small chip towards the end.
So here's my question - I know that you can't really 'overstrop' your edge, but I'm beginning to think that my excitement in the very begining may have resulted in me stropping with more pressure than I should have. Can the linen side help me out at this point, or do I need to send it off to have it honed?

Chris

First of all, welcome.

Now to answer your questions, there's a couple of things to consider. First, if there are chips you can see with the naked eye, it probably needs to be honed.

Linen can go a long way to refresh an edge, and pasted strops can go farther, but at the end of the day, visible chips are usually a time for honing. So far, I have managed to repair chips that were small enough I could NOT see the actual chip, but could see the "gap" when looking at reflected light. (hope that makes sense)

The other thing, and this is probably the most important. It's my understanding that the thumb nail test is ONLY suitable for checking the edge before honing, or early in the honing process. Running a freshly honed edge along your thumbnail will pretty much wreck the edge.

So, the edge may have been shave ready when you got it, but one drag across your thumbnail and it may not be anymore.

yup....as far as I know with the thumbnail test, is it shouldn't be performed after the 4k level of stone for the very reason listed above....

and yes, if there is a visible chip, it's honing time (unfortunately):cry:

i agree with above said. wanted add 2 things.
at first location of the chip is important if it is in shaving part of the blade then you will need to send to hone. if it is on the heel or tip you may try this.
at first if you have any hone at all? if yes use back stroke sharpening couple stroke and then strop with light pressure 30-60 check blade how it shaves? may help.gl

The above are correct if you see chips. One thing to keep in mind. You can incorrectly strop a razor (too much downward force on the blade, digging into the leather or fabric by accident, etc...) which can cause problems with the edge, but you can't over-strop if you are doing it correctly. :tu

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Originally Posted by hi_bud_gl

i agree with above said. wanted add 2 things.
at first location of the chip is important if it is in shaving part of the blade then you will need to send to hone. if it is on the heel or tip you may try this.
at first if you have any hone at all? if yes use back stroke sharpening couple stroke and then strop with light pressure 30-60 check blade how it shaves? may help.gl

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The chip's on the tip, just in the right spot to make a nice little, shallow, cut along the bottom of my jawline on the ATG shave. Oh well. Guess I'll learn how to hone now.:) I'm guessing I'll start looking for a Norton 4K/8K. Gotta do it sooner or later. I just thought it might be later.

Thanks all for the help on this! Bummer that this happened within my first week. But hey, let's learn all about this new shaving thing all at once, huh?
Thanks again!

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Originally Posted by OxFire

The chip's on the tip, just in the right spot to make a nice little, shallow, cut along the bottom of my jawline on the ATG shave. Oh well. Guess I'll learn how to hone now.:) I'm guessing I'll start looking for a Norton 4K/8K. Gotta do it sooner or later. I just thought it might be later.

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Hey OxFire,

Congrats on finally making it here! I've been at straight shaving for about a month now, and I can't believe how much I have learned in such a short amount of time.

I bought an antique to try out my honing skills, I kinda sorta got in the vicinity of being able to shave with it, not bad my first time out. Could've been a lot better, but hey I'm learning.

A few things I would mention to save you some time, and so you don't make the same mistakes I did (if you have never honed before):

1.) I would recommend taping the spine for a hone. You will have to do this every time thereafter, but it will save your spine from excessive wear.

2.) If you can get a couple junky razors from an antique store, I would highly recommend that. For about $20, you can probably pick up a couple of them, just to practice your technique and see if you can get a decent edge going.

3.) If you can see that chip, it will take quite some time with a 4K/8K to get it out of the metal. (Hence taping the spine like I said in point 1). It will definitely take some patience.

4.) Easy on the pressure! That's how I gummed my edge I believe. (That and that I did a thumbnail test after an 8000 run. :gaah: Live and learn...) It seems like a simple thing, but you really do have to develop a technique to allow the blade to just barely rest on the hone, and counterbalance the scale. It does take some technique, that's for sure.

5.) Don't drink and hone! :nono:

The wiki here has a lot of great info, I would definitely read through that material before you attempt your first honing session.

And if you're not a honing NooB, then ignore all the crapola I just said. :D

Good luck to you, and let us know how you make out on it! I'm interested to hear...

Check out sharpeningsupplies.com. They have a waterstone kit with 220/1000, 4000/8000 combo stones and a flattening stone. If your blade is chipped you may need the 220/1000 grit to save a lot of time honing.
Prices are comparable to what you can find & may save you a lot of time searching on e-bay !:gl:

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Originally Posted by warpigs421

Hey OxFire,


1.) I would recommend taping the spine for a hone. You will have to do this every time thereafter, but it will save your spine from excessive wear.

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You might want to search "taping the spine" on the forums before you decide to do this. There are definately several camps on this one. One camp says tape the spine to protect the spine from wear, another camp says spine wear is actually a good thing to keep the geometry of the bevel correct over time as the blade wears away. Another camp says the geometry thing isn't significant enough to make a difference, but spine wear is just normal and not a big deal. Another camp sets the bevel without tape, then switches to tape to set a smaller 2nd bevel (so you still get spine wear with that method).

What do I do? I actually do both... I have a Dovo full hollow that I hone without tape (even though it has gold wash on the spine).

But I have another 1/4 hollow grind razor that I wanted to experiment with setting a second bevel, so for that razor I don't use tape on stage 1 (to set the bevel), then switch to tape for stage 2 to set a 2nd bevel.

Both of these methods work for me. I am able to get a sharper edge on the 1/4 hollow razor with the 2-bevel approach, so I'm thinking the best approach might be razor specific, esp. when you have different grinds.

Just remember, once you decide to use tape, you need to keep using tape for touch-ups until you need to reset the bevel, at which point you get to choose again which route to go... and if you send your razor out to be honed and you want to use tape, be sure to tell the honemeister so he can set it up that way for you.

Happy honing!

-Chief