The surprisingly smooth 4K shave!

[dshaves]

After talking with gssixgun about many honing questions I had, he suggested I do the 1k shave challenge. Which I did and discovered the 1k shave was not as scary as I had previously thought. He then suggested I continue down that road and test shave each of my Shapton Glass stones 1k, 4K, 8k to learn what each stone actually does to the edge!

I am honing a Hart steel 7/8" razor with 2 pieces of tape.

I have a Viking type beard and a sensitive neck...

1k bevel set then run the edge over thumbnail and back to the stone for 5 refreshing laps, strop on leather and shave!

The 1k edge shaved relatively well, not close but pain free and smooth.

4K 20 X strokes, run edge over the thumbnail pass, 5 refreshing laps, strop and shave!

The 4k stone brought the edge to a whole new level. The shave was practically bbs, effortless, close and comfortable I still can't believe it...with the grain and across the grain and zero sting from the aftershave too!

Can't wait to shave with the 8k!!!

To be honest, before this I was using an astronomical amount of passes on each stone! I had removed so much metal that the edge was about as thin as aluminum foil, but strong enough to shave, of course WITHOUT the ease and comfort of a properly honed razor, oh well...I didn't know any better By the time I finished stropping the edge on linen, then taking a last look under the 30X scope, the edge was so ragged and weak. All this to say I have no idea what I am doing. I needed this challenge to help me create a stronger and more comfortable edge by the "less is more" approach. So far I am blown away at the results I am receiving from this challenge. Hope this might help someone