Thread: Full hollow vs half hollow ground

I have tough beard hair too and I have had to strop mid shave sometimes, depending on the blade. Normally the full hollow grounds need to be stropped after the first pass and thats it.

Do try finding a 1/4 hollow or 1/2 hollow blade, it is AMAZING the difference in stiffness. The 1/4Hollow Hess "Otto" I got from Randy is amazing, mows through 4 day stuble like it was butter. Plus Randy rocks at honing

Yeah...that Hess is a killer shaver.

Originally Posted by Joe Chandler

Any quality razor, properly honed and stropped, should make it through a shave without dulling. It almost sounds like you've got a wire edge on your razors. They'll cut great for a few minutes, but dull out quickly when they contact the hair. Also, check your face prep...try shaving straight out of the shower, or use hot towels. You may be doing all this correctly, I don't know. I know that I have pretty tough stubble, though, and I've never had one dull halfway through a shave.

I used to go to an old time barber who was a real master, and I used to see him do mid-shave stropping all the time, even after he stropped when first starting a shave. He could tell by the feel of the razor if it had to be done. The razor never got to the point where there was nay noticeable pull.

I don't know what it is that rquires that. It may be the toughness of the beard or hardness of the whiskers, or both.

It doesn't sound like a wire edge, but it can be an edge that's too weak for the beard. One possibility is to compromise slightly on sharpness to get a more durable edge. You have to decide if it's a tradeoff you're willing to make.

I prefer single grind non full hollow blades. I have several from Joe and Bill and they have only been stropped since I got them.
I shave with two passes and have never had to strop in between. A few times I've shaved and forgotten to strop and no difference noticed. Mind you Bill and Joe ain't bad a honing . I'm also the guy that needs to shave in the evening if I'm going out and need to be smart so my beard is to too light.

Just my kiwi $ worth.

Gary

as an after thought. Buy a razor from Joe and Bill and you won't have the same trouble.

Everybody thinks their own beard is tough :-)

As I see it, the problems with a heavier beard are threefold: (1) the thicker hairs are more difficult to soften all the way through (2) the tougher whiskers damage the edge more during the shave (3) even a little bit of degradation in the edge causes painful pulling.

This means that increases in beard toughness can have a very nonlinear effect on the shave difficulty, so slight increases in beard toughness can cause a much more difficult shave because all these different factors multiply each other.

I've got a few half-hollow and quarter-hollow blades. I'm not convinced that the grind is that critical.

My half-hollow friodur shaves well, but then so do my full hollow friodurs. My 8/8 quarter hollow W&B shaves well, but it needs a mid-shave stropping while my 8/8 frameback W&B doesn't. And all of my lightweight full-hollow heljestrands sail through the shave without needing a stropping. (All this assumes they're finished on the 1 micron paddle).

Originally Posted by Joe Chandler

You may be right, but stropping a razor is analogous to steeling a butcher knife. You can line the wire up again and get some more cutting out of it. Sometimes, the wire edge will get bent to one side, rather than break off. The bending will slow it down, and stropping will center the wire again. Eventually, it will break off, but you can stretch it by stropping. Now, I'm not sure if that's what's happening here...just throwing out suggestions.

You know, I can't be sure you're not right.

The must be a continuity of the durability of edges all the way from dull to wire edge. It's the application that determines when the edge is too weak. A wire edge is just the extreme where the edge is too weak for anything. After all you wouldn't get that burr on the butcher knife if all you did was shave with it (assuming it was sharp enough).

I've never thought of the condition that requires stropping as a burr, although I could be wrong (it could be a microscopic one). I've visualized it as a condition where the microserrations are bent so as to spread out rather than the edge being bent. They do come back most of the way within a day. Stropping just pushes them the rest of the way. Also, I've always visualized the bending of the teeth, after they return, as being elastic. In other words, when you push them back, there's no fatigue. That would explain why you can strop and just refresh indefinitely. You're not breaking off teeth but jus sharpening the ones that are there.

[quote=mparker762]

I've got a really flexible "singing" blade that needs stropping mid-pass, so I rarely use it except on the weekend.

That makes sense. If the blade is flexible, the micrserrations will be too, and you'll need to strop more often.

In my experience, finer grit finishes fare worse than coarser finishes; 0.25 micron edges won't last a single pass even on my best razors, 0.5 micron does better but only one of my razors will go an entire shave with it, even my friodurs need stropping mid-shave. If I stop at 1 micron then the Friodurs will go an entire shave just fine, but my Wade and Butchers still need a mid-shave stropping. I rarely go finer than 1 micron nowadays, and for most I stop at either the 8k or the translucent arkansas.

This is a recognized fact of life in blade sharpening, when you're working with a particular blade. But as discussed above, the nature of steel in ndividual blades may make a bigger difference between different blades.

I've got one razor that stands above the rest, the TI Pierre Theirs LE. With that one I can finish the blade on .5 micron chromium oxide, and it will make it through both passes of the shave without stropping and at the end it will still pop the hairs on the underside of my arm (though not quite as readily as it did immediately after stropping). And it sounds like papabull has hand-forged a razor for himself that performs similarly, so I'm hopeful that I can one day enjoy the sort of shaving performance the rest of you are currently enjoying.

Your suggestion that hand forging made the blade stiffer may well be the reason.

[quote=mparker762]

Everybody thinks their own beard is tough :-)

I don't consider my beard tough. There's a high density of hair, but I'm fair haired, so it's fairly thin and soft.

But I find I have to strop mid-shave sometimes. I like the edge really sharp, and I'll usually end with a .5 strop sometimes a .25. With me being used to that kind of sharpness, and the egdes being honed that fine, it's not a surprize that some razors might need stropping mid-shave. I've never paid much attention, but I don't think it's ever happened with a TI, and all of mine are singing blades.