Thread: I am the challenge and I conqured myself.

A while back I challenged myself, my inept in the shop self, to take a razor apart, clean, polish and set it in new scales. Attached pic is the W&B 13/16 Rattler that I surprised myself by doing a decent job of cleaning and re scaling.

I finally got around to honing it to see if all my work was worth it. Initially it was a bust. I managed to get the smoothest non shave off of a razor ever.

I then remembered the various posts I had read about getting a decent 1k shave and said what the hell, try it, failure is a signpost to success. With some modification I set a bevel on a King 1k with a number of Japanese strokes, circles and x-laps. Took it one step further and did 10 light laps on the new Naniwa's SS 12k, stropped the heck out of it with 6 laps Crox on small felt pad, 6 laps on chalked linen, 15 laps on clean linen, 15 laps on hard felt and 100 laps on 3" English Bridle leather. Great anticipation till the next morning when I would shave with it.

Dear God in Heaven, Great Universe and any other descriptive you want to use for stating astonishment. I had a DECENT shave! Not great, not tugging at all, not too rough at all. So encouraged later that day I took it to my Norton 4k and repeated the above sequence. Greater anticipation for the next morning.

No s**t! I exclaimed on completing a DFS! Yes a DFS. I was so pleased I shaved the next day with that level and again had a DFS. Bolstered by this I then moved to the Norton 8k, etc. Result? How about a DOUBLE DFS! Fireworks (imagined), appropriate swearing of the good kind, and a sense of accomplishment I hadn't had since recovering from my divorce of 30 some years ago.

One other, and significant lesson learned from all this, was how to handle a smiling blade. In this case I had to hone it in three sections to get sharpness along the entire edge.

I am looking forward to making this old dog learns new tricks getting good edges on my other razors in need.

See, you're not not as "old" of a dog as you think!

It is a growing story of awesomeness.

Originally Posted by MajorEthanolic

See, you're not not as "old" of a dog as you think!

You may be right. I can still scratch under my chin with a rear leg.

Just awesome!!!!!!!!

Well done. This is the kind of story I love to hear!