Thread: Shout out to all the SRP gurus

Originally Posted by ScottGoodman

Something I see is going on is your thought about sharpness. One time I thought I knew what sharp was, I was about the best knife sharpener in the tri-county area. People would bring me knives from up a ways off. I got into razors and thought I could hang with the knowledge of these guys here on SRP, remember: I was a knife sharp guru. What I came to learn, a "dull" razor to a pro who has been at this a while was as good and probably better than my "perfect" knife edge.

Diamonds are for repair of razors, flattening stones, and ladies...that is it. DMT is good 325, Atoma 400 is better, I have seen them both under the microscope.

A minimalist set of stones would be a set of Naniwa 1, 3, 8 or a Norton 1, 4, 8. If you must have a finisher, Naniwa 12K is the most affordable finisher there is. Stay away from natural stones. They have their place, but they are not for beginners who have no honing foundation.

Learn to shave first. You don't know what a shave ready razor is. Learn to touch up that razor, then learn to hone. Patience is something you really need to get into this sport, speed hurts...literally.

I don't recall you mentioning having a strop. Stropping is paramount, if you don't have one you must get one. No way around that one.

Send the razor to me, I will hone it and return it to you. The only cost to you will be return postage via USPS flat rate box. This way you can learn to shave and have no question if the razor is "shave ready" or not.

Thank you for the friendly offer to hone for me. Is it possible that having it honed would just trigger discontent? Here is where I was able to get it. I was able to get it cutting hair 1/2 inch away from the skin. I also managed to get thicker hairs to split down the side like whittling a stick. My current challenge is getting that performance along the entire blade. It's not that sharp in all spots. Any advice would be appreciated. But at the moment I'm pretty happy with the shave I'm getting. Totally afraid that if I experience a truly shave ready razor, I might become spoiled on it, destroying my current state of self satisfaction.

Oh I made a strop out of old denim jeans. I haven't seen much discussion on this forum about using denim. It's doing something but I can only guess that leather would be better. If anyone sees a discussion where someone has tested them both I'd like to read it.

PS
"sharp" to me is passing the leaf on water test. I challenge any of the pros here to post a video of one of their razors passing that test.