Thread: Burly chin wiskers or dull razor?

Originally Posted by LarryAndro

After some long conversations with other more experienced straight users, and after a lot of searching of threads, I have concluded that some of us experience "pulling" even when using sharp blades. You will sometimes read others suggest that you think of shaving these tough areas as beard reduction instead of beard shaving.

When I shave my chin my razor typically slices thru my beard relatively easily, but requiring some pressure. My blade is almost flat on my skin. And, the pressure required might be interpreted as pulling by some. This first pass usually does not shave down to skin level; close, but not there. My next WTG pass is performed with less pressure, and slices off less beard. It gets me closer to the skin; almost there. And, it has less "pulling." The last WTG pass is usually free of pull, the remainder of the beard slices off easily and cleanly at skin level.

I don't know if this is typical. But, this is my pattern, and was the pattern even the first shave with a razor sharpened by Lynn. The main point being that the first pass or two reduced the beard, while the last pass could be more accurately be termed "shaving."

Is there any chance that the pulling you described is similar?

All that sounds pretty familiar to me. I think you called it. After perusing the honing forums for a while I decided to order some chrome ox and diamond paste to complement my set of norton hones. I figure it couldn't hurt to do a little touchup on the blade just to be sure. Now to decide if I want to paste a hanging strop or make a paddle...

What I did was put Chrom Ox on the cotton strop from Tony Miller. It works really well. In fact, I don't really use my pasted paddle anymore. However, I'm confident that either setup will work quite well.

Playing with hones is half the fun... now that you've decided to take this step, brace yourself for HAD

Cheers

The chin area is one of the hardest at first and even after many years of shaving as the normal tendency when shaving is to open up the angle of the razor to as much as 90 degrees which usually causes pulling and scraping. You really have to pay extra attention to get the razor straightened back up and to that 30 degrees or less angle and that usually is the ticket.

Re-honing is the easy part.

Lynn

Originally Posted by freeman

...Now to decide if I want to paste a hanging strop or make a paddle...

Right now, as you said, you're not really sure whether you should use a hanging strop, or a paddle. The problem with both is that once you have applied paste, it's hard to remove it! My recommendation is to spend $3 at a hobby store, buy a 3 inch by 3 foot strip of balsa wood, cut it in half, and that gives you 4 sides to paste with diamond and CrOxide or whatever. Don't paste it to anything, for as said before, you don't know now whether that particular paste / surface is something you will continue using. (Just be sure to use light pressure, and the X honing pattern.)

Use it as is from the hobby store, and after a week you will know what you want. Then, spend money or time in building a pasted strop, or hanging strop.

(Get a flat object and using fine sandpaper, sand the top of the balsa before pasting. It won't take much. Just to be sure you have a flat a surface as possible. Then, go to it. One possible disadvantage of balsa unattached to something more rigid is warping. Watch for that. But, probably you won't be using the balsa wood as described above very long anyway before moving on to something more permanent.