Pyment's Barlow Wedge-Update
There was a thread back on 8/17, here, where pyment was asking for help with a new Barlow Wedge he pruchased on eBay. The thread went on for a couple of pages, and I couldn't stand it any longer. His struggeling forced my OCD to kick in and I offered to take a look at it. After several further attempts by him to get this razor sharp, he finally gave in and sent it to me. He has asked that I publish a detailed report on what I have done and what the results have been so far. When it arrived the box was bulging. I immediately thought, wow, this thing is way over wrapped. Needless to say it wasn't. Inside was the razor, but also some Kenyan coffee that he personally roasted. By the way - you guys really blew it on this one - that coffee is absolutly wonderful. Back to the razor. So after honing this thing up I finally took it to the bathroom and lathered up for a shave. This is what the results were............ we'll get to that later. For now here is the process I went through.
The first thing I did with this razor was take a picture of its edge to see what it looked like. It wasn't very sharp, but had a good looking bevel. The results showed 2 chips on the blade and some deterioration along part of its edge. I can't figure out how to insert a picture yet, so maybe somebody could help me out here.
Next, I marked the edge of the blade with a Sharpie chisel tip and wet my Naniwa 1k stone. After drying the marker, I placed the full blade on the stone and made one very slow swipe in one direction. I then flipped the blade over and did the same with the other side. What I discovered was a blade that was badly warped to the point that only about 30% of it was touching the hone on both sides.
So, here is a quick summary of what I had to work with. The spine wear seemed to be normal for a wedge. Most wedges look like nothing is there anyway. The blade had a real crazy warp to it, and we were working with a smiling edge. These issues individually would not be to bad, but compounded together present the need for a very complex solution. I had to pull everything I had out of my as.....uh well hat to tackle this one.
I started on the 1k nani but soon discovered that this was going to take forever. But I did manage to very slowly create a rythm with each side that did remove the marker. I dried the blade and remarked it again. Then I tried 3 laps with the slow rolling-x - 45 - cupping, or whatever you call it, which totally removed the marker from the edge.
Then I put 1 piece of tape on the spine and moved to the 1.2k DMT. I soon found out that I needed to go lower, and moved to the 325k DMT. Here I finally produced a nice bevel and removed the two chips from the edge. It has always been my own personal opinion that setting the bevel is really doing two things at once. First the bevel itself. It should be as close to the same on both sides as possible, and not have a wider spot on one side, with a complimentary narrow spot on the other side. The second thing we are doing is trying to create a sharp edge. We know we have done this by performing a TNT. This test will, first, indicate a chip by not moving smoothly and second, the edge will want to very softly cut into the nail. Once you pass this TNT test you are ready to move. Remember to NEVER do this test again, or you will ruin your work.
I then moved back to the 1k nani. I worked on it until the edge would pop hairs along the whole blade length. From here I went to the 3k nani. By now I really had the stroke rythm down and was able to pick up the pace a little. I use the progressive method, so I continued on this stone until I passed the TPT easily. It is imparative to watch the wave of water, in front of the blade, while working on these higer grit stones. This will indicate how your contact with the stone is doing.
So I went from the 3k to the 5k nani. After I passed the TPT off the 5k, I moved to the 8k for 20 strokes. Then I went to the 16k Shapton for 10 strokes. At this point I tried to cut hair on my arm. When you do this, the hair should just fall over instead of popping, and it did. I then did 20 strokes on .5 diamond spray on felt, 20 strokes on solid strop with crox, then 40 strokes on canvas, then 50 laps on leather. Then came the real test, the shave.
So back to the shave. I made my lather, and then warmed up my beard with a hot towel. Lathered up and began to shave. Now my beard is, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the worst, a solid 9. It normally takes me 5 passes to get a BBS shave. I did a WTG pass and the normal short stubble was still there. Then a XTG pass and all stubble was gone. Then a ATG pass, and guess what? The BBS shave was there. I didn't have to go any further. I cleaned up, put a hot towel on my face and splashed some bay rum on. Very, Very nice shave.
I think Pyment will be very pleased with his ebay purchase. I hope as much as I am with the coffee he sent me.
Ray
