Quote Originally Posted by heirkb View Post
So I tried some of the things people had mentioned.

I raised a light slurry on my Iwasaki choice stone and tried to hone a razor that used to shave (but not very well) but stopped shaving after I tried the methods I described in the OP. There's a confusing sentence. The razor shaved not well. Then I tried the methods I mentioned in the OP. It stopped shaving. That brings us to today. I did circles up and down 8-10 times. Then 20 x strokes. Still not great. So another 5 or so up and downs of circles and 15 x strokes. Still nothing really. I tried a light Meijiro slurry and did 4 up and downs of circles and 15 strokes then moved back to what I was doing before. Eventually gave up, because I came up with another idea.
I felt the edge on this razor again and decided to give it a test shave, because it actually felt comparable to some of my other razors that were shaving ok. The shave went fairly well without any painful tugging. I could feel the hairs being cut, but it wasn't a painful sensation so the edge was around 8.5/10 for me. 10/10 is when shaving feels like nothing, as though the razor is wiping hairs off my face.