Thread: Need Advice for My Stainless

Originally Posted by Bart

What is it with you Canooks, that you have to shave leg hairs instead of arm hairs??? Now I have to imagine you sitting at the hones, with your pants down. I sure hope your wife doesn't catch you in the middle of the night in such a pose...

I'll admit that that is not a very flattering image, but it is cooler on the legs ! Seriously though, I already have a few bald patches on my arms from honing this Henckles, and people will start to notice now that we Canadians can (almost) resume wearing short sleeve shirts following a very long and gruelling winter. Bald patches on my legs are less noticable.

I think I will put myself (and my face) at risk and try a test shave right away to see where I'm at. I'll let you guys know how it went.

I had my test shave tonight and it went fairly well. I will say it was 100% better than last weeks non-shave; First WTG pass was smooth as far as first passes go. I could tell it wasn't quite there (this is the point where I should mention that I've never experienced a proper honemeister edge) so I didn't tempt fate and attempt a second pass. I'll be honest and admit that I had to finish with another razor, which I haven't had to do since my 1st and 2nd straight shave.

So overall I'm quite satisfied with this attempt. I still think there's some uneven sharpness issues; I'll try Bart's refining advice and see how it goes.

Thanks guys,

Ryan

Ryan,

I ordered 2 more of those 7/8 Friodurs and honed one up today, with awesome results, among the best edges I ever got. And I didn't use anything else but one Coticule.
Because this might be of interest to you, since you're honing the exact same razor, I'm posting a description of what I did.

I had already honed 3 other razor, and wanted to give this one a quick go. I looked with magnification and saw a pretty lousy honing job, a lot of "toothiness" at the edge and a number of small chips missing (not viewable with the naked eye). Next I honed a bit on a medium Coticule with slurry, and checked again with the scope. The hone was not touching the very edge, but it wasn't far off. I contemplated for a few moments, to keep honing at the new bevel that was already forming, but I decided to put one layer of tape to the spine, because of the spine has ornamental filing, and perhaps also a bit because I was in a hurry.
With the tape in place the Coticule started honing immediately at the very edge, I did 100 back and forth laps on one side of the razor, flipped it over, and repeated at the other side (all on slurry), checked again and saw that all the teeth and chips were nearly gone. I did another 50 b&f laps (on both sides) and had a clean edge. I performed about 40 regular X-strokes after that and started my usual 100 laps diluting stage. I finished with 70 laps on the Coticule with water. After that, when a hanging hair was dragged across the edge, it catched and popped. After stropping 70 laps on clean leather, the HHT improved to as good as silently severing the hair. The test shave was amazing: this 7/8 Friodurs remain among the best shavers I have ever used.

Thought I'd let you know. If I can do it, so can you.

Best regards,
Bart.