Thread: Just honed my first smiling wedge

I've only been honing for a short while and I've been getting better and better results so I decided to finally give honing a smiling wedge a try. This James Barlow razor had a few small nicks so I knew setting the bevel would not be easy. I wanted to do unicot with my coticule but decided to set the bevel on my 1k SS. As you can see, there is some pretty funky hone wear so I decided to use two pieces of tape and then went to work. Three episodes of Person of Interest later, the chips were gone and I was popping arm hair. I then dulled the edge, replaced the tape and then commenced the Unicot. The half rolling x took some getting used to but I got it down I think. After that, I hit about 30 licks on the Trans Ark. Then 80 strokes on vintage linen and 80 on my butt hide strop. The results were surprisingly good. I was really pleased, and surprised, at how good a shave I had. I'm pretty damned proud of myself. After taking the time to set a good bevel, it was all downhill from there.