Long post warning....

I received a Torrey that I picked up from eBay. Cleaned it up, re-set the bevel and went to honing and noticed something that I wondered if I'm correctly interpreting.

Using what the general consensus is a fine Arkansas whetstone. (Original post here: http://straightrazorpalace.com/showthread.php?t=16154 )

I'm not sure exactly what it is; it's older than me and it's black but not translucent. Anyway, I just started using it, soaking the stone then keeping water on it as I work. No worries; it seemed to cut slow but evenly when I experimented with it. I had never tried to finish an edge with it so this was the 1st real attempt.

Then the odd thing. As the edge seems to start really dialing in, the blade seems to start to drag initially feeling like there was something sticky on the stone. I decreased pressure to really nothing and still the blade is "grabbing" as I make a pass. I stop and take a closer look to see if I did get something on the blade or stone- nada. I cleaned up the stone as a pre-caution and went back to it, same feel. In my feable mind I'm thinking the edge is uneven or the bevel is not set properly so back to the rough stuff to try again. Work back up to the Arkansas and, after a gozillion passes, same feel. I decided to quit for the evening and test the razor in the AM.

Shaved with it- shaved excellent! So now I'm confused about the odd "feel". As I think about it more, I start to wonder if the grab/drag feel I was getting was actually the edge getting finer and finer, making more contact with the hone....

I took the razor to the hone again, this time instead of using water to lubricate I used lather. The passes on the hone were butter-smooth with consistant drag and good feel. The lather gave me a good visual too on how evenly the edge was tracking the hone. I have not shaved since making some lathered passes (will tomorrow AM) to test it.

Am I correctly interpreting the feed-back I'm getting from the hone? Is the uneven grab/drag I was feeling actually the edge getting more and more even? I have just started using it so this is all new to me. Just wondering.....

Thanks!

v/r

Allen