Thread: God, It's Hard!

If you want me to I'll hone your razor for you for the cost of return postage. Just drop me a PM if you are interested!

Hello again,

You can see how far out of flat your stone is by drawing a grid across it with a pencil, then grinding it against a flat stone. You can see where the grid is rubbed away and where it stays.

You're lucky you have friends who can mill stones--that'll help you.

I remember from an earlier post that you are stropping on a belt. If you want to use a pasted strop, I'd recommend putting the paste on balsa wood. If you do a lot of stropping with abrasive, you can put some strange wear on the blade. I think having the abrasive on a nonflexible surface helps reduce that wear. It's kind of like you've built your own hone. Google "Balsa Hone" or search for it here on SRP.

Good luck!

Thanks guys!

I received the norton and the honing compound. Honed as instructed and stroppped my razor. And voila! My first proper shave. Well, it's not perfect and when I splashed gilette's alcohol based aftershave felt like fainting of pain.

There is one problem though, as many of you warned me, I guess I damaged my blade. When ı put it on the stone, it's tip is slightly off the surface. Very little but still not good right? And it's only one side. Maybe I applied too much pressure. Anyway, it's sad but shave must go on. I've seen brand new Muhle brand razors in one of the shops. it's around €80. Some other place has ERN.

Congratulations!

It is possible that the razor's blade is slightly warped -- not your fault. Some razors come warped from the factory, especially "vintage" (old) blades.

You may be able to use "rolling strokes" to sharpen the part of the edge that's off the stone. Check the Wiki:

Rolling X stroke - Straight Razor Place Wiki

. . Charles

Yes it's a vintage Kron-Punkt. Rolling X seems difficutle, better start practice with a dummy

Can you post a picture of your razor and your Turkish oil stone? I'm curious to see them.

If you didn't get a DMT hone, you can lap your hones on wet sandpaper stuck to a flat surface--a piece of glass or a flat polished stone from your friends at the tile mill.

Good luck with it all!

Sure I can, here they are(in order:my straight razor, TOS, Arkansas Stone, Pasted strop as instructed in Wiki, Balsa with rubbing compound, very good quality leather belt , pure badger brush, crappy straight razor with disposable, my straight razor's edge on norton 8000):

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That's a good-looking setup. Too bad about that warp at the end of the blade. Yes, you'll have too learn a special stroke to hone it.

I've never seen a TOS--looks cool. Is it slightly translucent? Your Arkansas looks gorgeous.

Best wishes