Quote Originally Posted by celticcrusader View Post
One of mine on the hones today my Iwasaki, I noticed a little fall off in sharpness during the last shave with this razor, just of lately with my own razors I've taken to bypassing the linen component after using the 20K and going 50 suede 50 cordovan shell seems to offer me a slightly smoother sharper edge.

I usually use linen after a shave to thoroughly clean any soap residue off the blade.

After a refresh, it's always suede followed by leather for me. I agree the suede seems to be one of the materials that if you buy into progressive stropping (like I do), the suede makes a significant difference in the when the edge finally meets the leather.

I've got about 4 razors that have to be refreshed, and after reading Birnando's post, going to give a Barber's Hone a try...be interesting to do a side by side.