Originally Posted by
roughkype
Oh, man, you are so lucky to be able to walk into a place and meet with a professional like that! I bet only about 1% of us can do that. And working in the original Torrey building--that's cool!
*Neither of us work in that building, but it's still standing and has been turned into lofts/condos. J.R. Torrey Co went out of business in 1962, and whoever was running it went into personal finance or something. Still, it was great to meet Howard. As I said, he's just a neat dude.
I was just thinking yesterday about how useful a 4/8 with a smile would be. You can work into some tight crannies with that!
I'd recommend that you still practice an X-pattern on your strop, even though you don't need to. That way, if you do get a little ding in it in the future, your stropping pattern won't hit the same part of the blade over the same ding on every pass.
*I will... I've learned that with the smilers, you sort of HAVE to to get the whole edge in a pass, just like when honing.
From what I've heard and experienced, hollower blades are a little less forgiving of technical lapses. My near-singer is a hungry little thing, much hungrier than my full wedge. You'll learn impeccable technique with that Engels, whether you want to or not! I look forward to hearing how the 4/8 smiler shaves, too.
*Hehe... my luck to start with an unforgiving razor. Well, as you've said, I'll learn good technique whether I want to or not! Trust me... after today's foray... I WANT to do a better job. :)