Originally Posted by
jkeane22
Good news and bad news. Went to Art of Shaving (i know, i know) to check out my Thiers-Issard eBay razor and also check on my strop/honing technique. (they do a little hands on demo there). Good news is my techniques are fine. Bad news is, the blade may be too narrow to get a great edge because of the steep angle. I hadn't realized how narrow until i compared it to the 5/8 ones in the shop. Mine is probably closer to 3/8 or between that and 1/2. The manager said the razor doesnt look old enough to have been honed a lot, and the spine is still pretty unhoned. He thinks it probably got a nasty nick that someone ground out with a machine, but it changed the honing angle for the worse. The edge looked good to him but he tested it for sharpness (on his own arm!) and it didnt cut well. I didnt pay a lot for the razor which is good - he says, make this your practice razor! Of course he'd love to sell me a new one.