Thread: Razor Shave a Little Harsh After Honing

When honing my razors I use a Chosera 1K, Naniwa 5,8,12K followed by 30 laps on .5 diamond on felt and then 60 laps leather.
For the first few shaves the blade seems almost to sharp kind of harsh as my face is a little irritated when done shaving but then settles down after a few shaves. Is this normal or is there something I could be doing better?

Thanks for any advice
Guy

That is not uncommon. Often times .25 diamond can produce a harsh edge. usually the .50 doesn't but in general diamond can be harsh. You can try some CrO. It can really smooth things out.

Try fewer laps on the diamond. Maybe 10.

Michael

Hello, 30 laps is imo too much for dia paste or any paste. I generally do 7 laps on crox after synthetic and 3 or 4 laps after a natural. I would try the edge before the paste. Finish it and strop and see. Then do like 5 laps and test shave, try 10 etc. Im not a fan of diamond paste though. You may prefer the edge off the 12 without any paste.

Originally Posted by bill3152

Hello, 30 laps is imo too much for dia paste or any paste. I generally do 7 laps on crox after synthetic and 3 or 4 laps after a natural. I would try the edge before the paste. Finish it and strop and see. Then do like 5 laps and test shave, try 10 etc. Im not a fan of diamond paste though. You may prefer the edge off the 12 without any paste.

Just what he said! Less laps.

Last thing, I always scrub on clean felt between paste and leather. You don't want to contaminate the leather.

The edge you should get from the 12K and leather stropping should be fine by itself. I've never used pastes of any kind, and if your honing and stropping are done well, there is no need for them.

I'm a newbie of course but I find the 4/8, felt/webbing with CrOx and then leather to be good enough or move onto Naniwa 12k, skip the CrOx and move straight to leather.