Thread: Hello! Tips needed!

Congratulations on your successful first shave; any first shave that you survive with only minor wounds should be considered successful, actually shaving hair is a nice bonus :-)

As for sharpness, the razor should be able to cut arm hairs mid-shaft, that is, you should be able to wave the razor slowly through your arm hair a millimeter above the skin, and the hairs should either pop in two, or just tumble over onto the blade. With this level of sharpness, shaving shouldn't feel much like scraping, it should feel more like you're just wiping the lather off your face with the blade.

I'd use the pastes some more, but be careful not to use too much pressure, as that can make it difficult to achieve the very fine edge necessary for a comfortable shave. Also, you mentioned you had two pastes, are these the dovo pastes? If so, I think the green is the coarser paste at around 5-6 microns, and the red is the finer at 2 microns or so. You might want to do 10-20 light passes on the green, then wipe the blade very clean (to avoid cross contamination) and the 20 or so very light passes on the red. If that doesn't do the trick, then you may need to send the razor out for honing on an actual stone.

Aaah yes.. Thanks mparker762.. I got them both (red and green paste), i just didnt know if i was doing this armhair thing right, guess i was. I'll try out some again following ur instructions.

Btw, i got balsa atm to do these stroppings on, can i re-use it ? i mean, the place that i've contamined with paste earlier!? Need to clean it before it can be used again? I dont mean to mix those spots up (red/green), just if i can use that certain spot again or if i should buy a large amount of balsa pieces :P

No need to clean them, just be carefull when you switch between them, wipe clean your razor, to avoid cross-contamination of the pastes...

nenad

no need to reapply the pastes until they're all black and aren't sharpening anymore. A few drops should last you months before you need to reapply. Just wipe the blade off whenever you switch between them, so you don't get coarse paste smeared into your fine pastes.