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.