Thread: I feel like this shouldn't have worked.

Will wait for the shave report but I am betting against it. Some of that based on criswilson's 4k estimate. I shaved off a 1k once because it was crop dusting hair off my arm but I will never do it again :<0)

Originally Posted by 10Pups

Will wait for the shave report but I am betting against it. Some of that based on criswilson's 4k estimate. I shaved off a 1k once because it was crop dusting hair off my arm but I will never do it again :<0)

Awe come on Pups the 1K wasn't that bad. It was coarse feeling and tugged a little bit but a shave was attainable.

Originally Posted by RezDog

Awe come on Pups the 1K wasn't that bad. It was coarse feeling and tugged a little bit but a shave was attainable.

Maybe if I polished it with a river rock :<0)

I honed my first straight, for my second straight shave, on the Spyderco fine and ultrafine rods because that was the best I had at the time. After comparing that edge to a professionally honed edge a week or two later, I found I had not done half bad. The narrowness of the rods seemed ridiculous at the time, but now that I use X strokes almost exclusively the narrowness would not bother me. I may have to do another razor this way some time to see how it works, and revisit my beginnings.

You may want to take a look at the edge with some magnification, before you turn your face into corduroy.

The other issue is, using diamond to bevel set leaves deep stria, that often cause chipping at higher grits. So even if you do get an edge, it may crumble on you after stropping.

Simply looking at the edge will tell you a lot about how it will shave.

I have seen it said some other places that the Spyderco Fine is 8k and the Ultra Fine is 13k. I don't know how founded that is though. It is mostly the jump from fine diamond to something closer to a finishing stone that surprised me and how smooth the edge seemed to be and how smoothly it cut hair with literally 15 minutes of work at most. The diamond stone was quite fine and quite worn, so I would say that it was functionally at least 1k in terms of scratch pattern.

As far as comfort zones go, I work in a knife shop part time, which is part retail and part sharpening service. I sharpen a lot of different things there and am the most experienced sharpener there. I even do hair scissors for a number of stylists that are worth upwards of $200, so I'm used to handling other peoples items a lot and trying different things. My other job is in a designated full-service sharpening shop, so I spend around 30 hours a week making various things sharp.

Anyway, onto the shave report:

In essence, it wasn't bad. I checked the edge after stropping it for 50 laps and it looked clean and smooth. It cut well WTG and for the most part was as comfortable as any other shave I've done with fully polished edges. ATG was where things got a bit dicey. It certainly wasn't as comfortable as other edges have been and I was probably more careful than normal, knowing it wasn't polished as much. I did get a couple of minor nicks anyway, but my aftershave didn't burn more than usual. I also have notoriously sensitive skin and coarse hair, which is why I switched to wet shaving all those years ago. I will need to spend some more time on it, but considering that it was 4 stages from start to finish involving a diamond stone and cardboard is why I say not bad. It's been a few hours and my face feels great still.

Well your one of those guys that could put an edge on it with a brick and finish on a river rock :<0) The average guy would not be wise to try this. Me for example. I was thinking after my last post that the amount of time the edge spends on a round rod compared to the time the whole edge is on a stone would hardly make it worth the attempt. It sounds like it was a great experiment for you and turned out well. Wise to do on a regular basis ?