Thread: tried out a new dan's combination soft/black ark :}

when a friend of mine asked me why I used crox, I was sorta confused. I thought that was what you were supposed to do. so seeing as how he was trying out one way I like to hone a razor, I figured id better try out this whole no crox thing.

yesterday I took one of my favorite razors in 1095 and cocobolo, and took it to a brand new Dan's combination soft/black from amazon at about $78 shipped, its a 8x2x1" I checked it for flat on a granite plate, but didn't do anyting else to it. the razor had had one of my normal edges off the naniwa 12k. so I didn't use the soft side, and went straight to the black. to start with, I used some mineral oil, and then cut it on the stone with some mineral spirits to lighten it up and get the edge closer to the stone. did half laps on one side of the blade until I could see the scratch pattern go to the edge, flipped, did the same on the other side. then lightened up the pressure, and did alternating edge leading strokes to even things out. cleaned the stone, and went with straight mineral oil for a good cushion, and then alternating edge leading strokes for maybe another dozen strokes. replaced the oil, then switched to alternating edge trailing strokes for a dozen laps or so with a very light touch and plenty of oil to float the edge.

then instead of crox, linen and leather, I just palm stropped it maybe 20 times, I did have some of the mineral oil on my hand, and used the rest to oil the scales and pivot while I was there.

this morning, I lathered up with some mama bears vanilla and sandalwood {my wifes favorite}, gave it another 20 palm strops and shaved. it was a nice shave. close, comfy, just a hit of aggressiveness, got the nice sticking feeling when the razor wants to cling to my skin on the atg pass under my neck. I don't use any sort of aftershave, but no stinging or discomfort afterwards.

I then gave it my standard 10 laps on linen to dry the edge out, and will have fun seeing how it goes on just linen and leather for awhile :}