I decided to make my life easier by narrowing things down to a single razor, my norton 4k, 8k, and a barber hone, and an un-pasted strop. I touched up my Dovo last night on those exact hones. I got to the Swaty, used it with lather and it felt a little gravelly (it's not a finisher, I know.) But when looking straight down at the edge I saw no shiny spots, and there was almost no stria left that I could see under a 60x loupe. Arm hair practically jumped off before the blade hit it. Needless to say I was really looking forward to shaving with it.

So, this morning I strop it up on linen and leather then try it out. And the razor is dull. As in tugs worse than it did before I touched it up. At this point I'm thinking either the Swaty is no good due to it's feedback, or I screwed up stropping the blade. No big deal, I changed razors and finished up (poorly because now I was pressed for time).

When I get home and decide to troubleshoot. Under a 60x loupe it's obvious the bevel is not meeting. When I put the blade down yesterday I couldn't see the bevel looking straight down at it. Well, I took the same barber hone dry and touched it up. If that was the problem then it shouldn't shave after being touched up right? Right. Again I made sure the bevel is invisible.

I take the blade of the strop, and this time I took my magnifying lens with me. First I did a 20 laps on linen and checked it. Everything was ok. I did 40 on leather, same thing. Instead of shaving with it, I hit the edge with 12 laps on CrOx just to see what it would look like under the loupe. Then I did 10 more. Nothing suspicious but man was that thing shiny. Then I took it back to the barber hone for 5 laps to get rid of whatever the CrOx did to the edge.

At this point it was time to experiment, so I blacked the edge with a sharpie and played on the linen. first off I wanted to be sure I was contacting the edge of the blade. Some spots stayed black in the center of the bevel, but it got all along the very edge where the work is done. I tried high strop tension with heavy pressure, loose strop with no pressure, and everything between. I stropped slow and steady, and I stropped fast. For the life of me I could not produce the same wear I saw before tonight's touch up. Not with linen. Not with leather. Not even with shaving.

So after giving the edge h*** with the strop, I lathered up and shaved since it looked like I hadn't in days anyway. No more tugging, pulling, or discomfort. And the edge looked the same after the shave - and post shave stropping - as it did yesterday when I laid it down for the night after the touch up. In my mind this eliminates the hone as the source of the issue, and the strop/stropping technique as well. I mean I tried for several hundred laps to screw this edge up and couldn't do it.

So if neither hone, honing technique, nor strop/stropping technique are to blame, what the devil happened in less than 24 hours to mess up the edge of this razor? It boggles my mind. Humidity/rust? I don't see any signs of that on edges I haven't touched in weeks, and they're all housed in the same location. It has to be gremlins. Yep, that's it. I'm going with gremlins.