Woo-Ha!

Some of you folks were on the chat the other night, when I shave tested my first attempt at honing, which failed miserably. :boohoo:

Well, I went back to the hones, and found that I needed to spend more time on setting the bevel. I shave tested it tonight...

AWESOME! :beer2:

I had purchased a shave ready razor that the seller said had been honed by Lynn. I figured that razor would be about as good as it gets shave-wise. In retrospect, I'm sure I screwed up the edge on it the first time I stropped it, or else it had sat around long enough for the edge to degrade due to oxidation. (though, I suspect it was my neophyte stropping technique that was the culprit)
Whatever the case, that razor always tugged a bit when shaving my head. I just figured that because of my thick hair I would just have to put up with it.
My newly honed razor went through it with no resistance whatsoever... It was the hot knife through butter type of thing.

I am absolutely stoked at how well this razor shaved. I am now seriously considering sending off a different razor to a good hone-meister to see how good it can get. (now that I strop well enough to not damage the edge)

Conrats, definately a Woo-hoo moment. I would love to compare edges with you.

Congrats and a YEE HA from me!

Level up! Don't you love it? What did you set the bevel and finish on? Congratulations. The neat thing is that there are more new levels of sharpness and smoothness to discover, through experimentation and study.

Congrats!

Its a real feeling of achievement when you successfully hone your first razor!

Just for giggles, here is the razor:

http://i688.photobucket.com/albums/v...SB/westers.jpg

This is the one razor that is currently in my collection that I will never sell. It was my first successful hone, as well as my first re-scale.

The scales are real tortoise (I did the hot needle test) that came off of the Ernst Wupper who's blade I destroyed with my dremel (see the thread "perfect is the enemy of good" in the Workshop)
The scales were pretty dried out and were badly cracked. I soaked them in a special blend of oil and conditioners for four days. Then I put some epoxy on the cracked areas and pressed them back together. Finally, I put several coats of spar urethane over them, and finally gave them a nice buffing.
I'm not really happy with how the adjustable pins look on it, I will probably redo them with brass rivets once I get my peening technique down better.