Thread: Can't keep an edge

I bought a very lightly used CH Laurent 5/8 full hollow off ebay.fr quite a while ago. I have another identical razor I got from a member here and have enjoyed shaving with it. It came with a wonderful edge that I have been able to maintain quite well.

So I decided it was time to bring the ebay razor into my rotation. I have a 175x40 Le Grise, a 200x60 BBW, and a #8 La Dressante bout. Of course I started off by taping the spine. It took almost two hours on slurry to get a nice sharp (?) even bevel. I do lots of circles, but my slurry doesn't darken much. My coticule appears to be really slow. Anyhow, once I had what I believe to be a good bevel (using the thumbnail test, the thumbpad test, my jeweler's loupe) I moved on to the BBW. Using only x-strokes, and starting with a fair amount of slurry, I honed 12-15 strokes before diluting. After ~25 dilution steps I was down to almost water. 200 light finish strokes on the La Dressante with water only and I see a nice hazy bevel in the the loupe. 50/100 strokes on the strop and I attempt the HHT. I have a tough time with this test; with my hair the test works intermittently, with a new DE blade, with one of Glen's edges, and with my touched up edges. I got a few hairs to pop so I put it away for the following morning (Monday's) shave.

Monday's shave was passable, a bit too much pulling in the thicket on the chin. A bit of a disappointment. This morning, I tried again and only got two strokes down the sideburn before I knew this wasn't going to work...

My question: is it my bevel or my finish. This is the second ebay razor this has happened to me. First shave a disappointment; second, intolerable. Is the edge just breaking down? Since I'm using a coticule I don't think I'm overhoning. Or is my finish work not complete? I touchup my other blades with the bout when needed and I manage to keep serviceable edges for 10-20 shaves.

I'm not averse to sending it out for professional honing and then maintaining it as I have done with my others, but taking a blade from neglect to serviceable is a skill we all want to master.

The bevel is not fully set.

You can not polish an edge that does not exist.

If you are going to do a full Coticule progression, you should at least grit rate your 3 stones to see where they fit in the progression.


Ink the bevel to make sure you are honing to the edge when bevel setting, once the bevel is set, you should be able to remove all the ink in 1-2 laps, if not, the bevel is not FULLY set.

Then look straight down on the edge, if you see any shiny reflections, the bevel is not fully set.

A 1k would make your life a lot easier.

A touch up with a coticule is completely different from a full bevel set progression. The bevel set is 95 percent of the work.

Very good advice from Euclid

For me, the only way I test to see if my bevel is set is to shave arm hair, it has to be able to shave arm hair, otherwise the bevels do not meet and need more work, once it happens I work some more to perfect the bevel and get it to shave arm hair effortlessly

Most likely bevel but since you mentioned e-Bay...

Was it highly polished? I'm afraid that many sellers overheat the blades trying to get the mirror finishes. This can overheat the edge, possibly causing a loss of temper and cause it to break down repeatedly until you hone it back to the 'good stuff'.

Just my opinion after several dissatisfying e-Bay buys. Much honing usually cured it.

Seems like every time I run into a "won't shave" issue with my razors, it circles back to the bevel. I've stopped relying on thumb nail, thumb pad, and arm hair tests. The magnification doesn't lie, and will not hide issues that other tests might fail to reveal. I've learned the hard way that it IS possible to have a razor that

1) feels incredibly sharp on the thumb pad.

2) feels smooth across the thumb nail.

3) pops arm hair at skin level with unparalleled ease

4) tree tops arm hair

But will nearly bring a tear to your eye yanking hair out of your face. And magnification reveals the cause, the bevel is close enough to be able to pop hair but it isn't completely set. Until both planes of the bevel meet it won't shave for squat, but it may pass every other test you throw at it.

+1 to Euclid with his expert advice. Also, I agree with the 1k stone if you are buying ebay razors. I have found that alot of old razors have the edge of the steel that is corroded. These razors will get sharp but the bevel will stay hazy and won't polish out. So you think you have a great edge and then sometimes during the first shave it will 'crumble' away for want of a better description. You won't be able to maintain an edge until you get back into 'good' steel. Its much easier to get the bevel set with a 1k also, just my thoughts, hopefully some more senior members will chime in. VR Joe

Do you have any other hones? You are using advanced hones that are temperamental at best and very picky about slurry, pressure etc. Like any natural.
Many failures will get you to a success.

Thanks to all who replied. The razor actually came from a vendor in Germany, who was selling on the French Ebay site, go figure. It wasn't really cleaned up much; it looked like it had been sitting in a box in a drawer for a long time. No rust, no pitting, just years of patina. Flitz and a few qtips cleaned it up. I have a DMT325 and EZELap600 diamond stones, but try to avoid using them on razors unless I'm working out some edge chips. I have an old King1200 that I have not had much success with; perhaps I should dig it out of the garage and try again. I see Lynn has the Naniwa 1K SS for around $37 at SRD. I need to buy some soap in the near future, should I splurge? Or will the King do the job. It's not like I set a bevel every week...

I have the same King stone, try it with slurry, it really sped it up. I didn't have much luck either with it until I tried that.

Originally Posted by cau

Thanks to all who replied. The razor actually came from a vendor in Germany, who was selling on the French Ebay site, go figure. It wasn't really cleaned up much; it looked like it had been sitting in a box in a drawer for a long time. No rust, no pitting, just years of patina. Flitz and a few qtips cleaned it up. I have a DMT325 and EZELap600 diamond stones, but try to avoid using them on razors unless I'm working out some edge chips. I have an old King1200 that I have not had much success with; perhaps I should dig it out of the garage and try again. I see Lynn has the Naniwa 1K SS for around $37 at SRD. I need to buy some soap in the near future, should I splurge? Or will the King do the job. It's not like I set a bevel every week...

The coticules are one of the hardest stones to learn to hone on for a complete progression, because they vary so widely in performance. They are great for touching up, once a bevel is fully set, so deceptively folks think, oh piece of cake. Few are the guys that own just one…

Not saying it can’t be done or that it hasn’t been done for hundreds of years, just that learning on synthetics, is easier for most, then experiment.

There are couple of good Coticule and BBW threads currently running for stone ID, but that still won’t tell you where yours fits in a progression, And then there is slurry… Which can be an art form in itself.

There has always been a debate over how much, Coticule slurry breaks down, probably not so much, which is why you have to dilute to get the best results, when and how much to dilute is trial and error. But it is all moot, if your stone grits are in the wrong order.

More than likely no matter the progression, you are not doing enough laps. On heavy slurry, do lots of circles to flatten the bevels, finish on x laps, then dilute on the most aggressive stone to finish. Use ink to monitor your progress.