Thread: Welsh slates - looking for advice from those with experience

Originally Posted by RezDog

Well the basis for every perfect shaving edge is the bevel set.
....
You might want to try putting a 3 to 5K synthetic in your line up. It will likely speed your process up quite a bit.

This makes a lot of sense to me. The synthetics seem to be the best and most reliable
way to get down to a polished bevel.

What I am playing with now is only an 8K hone to refresh a shaver. Then I perfect the edge on a natural.
By entering the land of naturals with only 8K scratches I use no slurry and even allow my slate finisher
and surgical black to polish themselves.

I have been wiping the edge on a wet cork to remove any burr starting at 1K and even at 8K, 10K, 12K, 16K...
In the land of synthetics this gives me a calmer shaving edge and may be unnecessary with a more skilled hand
than mine.

For me I am getting better shaves on my open edge str8s than most DE blades give me.

I do not understand the wet cork.

I would imagine the cork is the equivalent of lightly jointing the edge on the side of the hone.

Ah. I occasionally do that with my thumb nail during restoration honing.