Difficulty honing a Dovo En Vogue SS, Micarta

[Attila]

Hello guys. Had a pretty frustrating night last night trying to hone my new Dovo En Vogue. I bought it new from a respected vendor (not SRD) sold as shave ready but when I shave tested it, it was not shaving comfortably at all. A lot of pulling and tugging. I had to finish 3/4 of my shave with my vintage Sprock and got a nice shave in the end. I have other razors that I get nice shaves from (I have been straight shaving for about 3 months now) so I don't think it is solely related to technique. I tried a HHT on it and it did not cut my wife's hair...at all. At any part of the blade. My other blades that I have honed or touched up myself had no problems whatsoever. I also tried shaving my fore arm or leg hairs and it barely cut any hair at all, even when I put the razor pretty much right on my skin.

I spent quite a lot of time trying to get the En Vogue to cut my forearm hair and pass the HHT test last night. A lot of effort to get the edge sharp. Have others had any difficulty honing this "ice hardened" stainless steel blade as well? I should add that I did run the razor lightly on the edge of a glass to start over with the edge before I started honing. I know this is controversial, but it has served me well on questionable edges before that I wanted to reset the bevel on.

The stones I used were a Norton 4/8, a Naniwa 12K and eventually when the 4K was not giving me results my King 1 K.
I also finished the blade on a CrOx finished paddle for 15 laps and stropped for about 70 on English Bridle leather. After about an hour and a half I was able to get the blade to pass the HHT and cut hair above the skin but not quiiite as easily as my other razors. I am going to try shave testing tonight. But man, that was a lot of effort to get a sharp edge!

I did speak to the vendor, they mentioned that it was honed on a Coti and it was honed for comfort rather than sharpness. My beard is slow growing but quite coarse. When I shaved with a DE (which I never really do anymore) I had to always use Feather and Astra blades to get a comfortable non-tugging shave.