Thread: am ruining my blade

Congratulations, these are a PITA to hone correctly. Much handling of the naked blade and they bite HARD.
MIke

Thank you gentlemen. Will continue to work with that in mind, following your kind guidance, baby steps.
This razor caught my eye a long time ago and it took me about a year and a half to get it. Then I got hold of the guide and looked around for people sharing their experiences with this. Saved money and exchanged emails with the vendor to get the stone. After I get to shave comfortably of this razor with a honed blade I might try a str8. This might be slowest path to str8 shaving but it certainly is fun.

Where in MN are you? There are a bunch of us here that might be able to help you

Gentlemen,
here is today's update. I believe the bevel is looking better and the edge on the sides doesn't look ruff anymore. The grind definitely needs more work.



Rod, looks like we not that far from each other. I am in Saint Paul as well, UMN area. Now, I am a complete newbie to anything non-disposable-blade related so not sure am worth your while.

Randy Tuttle (randydance062449 on the forum) gives newbie honing lessons, PM him, it's well worth it. I've been to about 20 of these and they are really informative to new honers, we go over using different hones, pressure on the hones, proper stropping etc

Originally Posted by lloydrm

Rod, looks like we not that far from each other. I am in Saint Paul as well, UMN area. Now, I am a complete newbie to anything non-disposable-blade related so not sure am worth your while.

^^^^^^

Yeah that right there

Sit down across the table with Rod and Randy and learn more about honing in a few hours then in months of reading

The bevel is looking pretty darn good man, you are taking your time and working through it,, way to go

Thanks for your help gentlemen. I learned my lesson for not stopping frequently enough to check so now am going sloooow.
I could really use honing lessons and see myself enjoying it so will PM Randy.

Weekend effort

Saturday.
The blade was not feeling very sharp but definitely getting sharper so I stropped it and punt in the razor to see how it went. Razor with blade on the side. Well, it was not shave ready. Three strokes and it was out. Finished with the SE set aside.

Sunday.
I'd been resisting the temptation of bringing another blade to the stone because ruining one can be justified as learning but not two. So I gave in and went super slow, is used only stokes going as perpendicular to the stone as the guide would me (it has a couple of protuberances very close the the blade the makes honing uncomfortable) checking the bevel every few strokes and I think am learning a few things worth sharing:
1. Even though putting the handle on the guide felt weird at the beginning it feels more confortable now. You have to made a good deal of effort to keep that blade flat on the stone and for me it works better it I use only the handle to do that. Somehow I felt dealing with those protuberances was easier. By using te guide without the handle I was getting more wear on the sides of the blade.
2. I haven't figured out yet how to finish on water only as I tend to dull instead of refine the edge.

So, I got a blade sharper than the previous, stropped, and test shaved with it. It went well! It was certainly not sharp; similar feeling to when I used an old GEM blade that is ready to be replaced. Three passes, some pulling and touch ups with a DE. Now the result feels different than anything I've tried before. I look forward to learn how to make them sharp and shave with them.

I hope I did not remove all that steel.

Last weeks I meet with Rod and Randy. These guys are great mentors and have a ton of experience not only honing and wet-shaving but teaching the art. Just as an example of how lost I was: I had no idea what the rolling x stroke was about. Not by name nor conceptually. In fact I thought not putting the blade flat on the stone at all times was something to avoid like a plague. I remember watching a gif at coticule.be and I thought I was not seeing it right

After that, I honed the same blade I showed at the beginning of this thread, plus two more from the set. I haven't been able to put an edge on the first one yet, but the other two got sharp enough so that I could make a complete shave with them. Great results! Very smooth shave. So smooth that I felt like touching up as much as I wanted without risking any irritation at all. I have not experience that with any other razor I've tried; not even with this same razor with a GEM blade. The shave and the results felt great.

I am sharing a couple of pics to show my approach, in case someone finds it useful. IME the guide is key to sharpen these blades, but the handle is too heavy, so I used a disposable bamboo chopstick. Then I lowered the pressure, lowered my anxieties, added some rolling x strokes and am getting better results. Am sure my blades are not sharp enough yet but am getting there and enjoying the process quite a bit. I'll make them sharp.




Thanks Randy and Rod for the honing lesson and patience. I surely hope it was not a one time lesson
Also, thanks to everyone on this thread for your encouragement words.

Sounds like it's coming together for you Lloyd, that is a cool looking razor and strop set.