Thread: Begginer seeks guidance

Hello everyone. I started shaving with a straight razor a couple of months ago.I've had some success honing but for some reason I can't get my bldes as sharp I want them. I have a dovo prima klang and a krusius brothers kb speicial that I got off ebat. The prima klang was new and honed. Ihave a norton 4k/8k ,a 12k jap stone, a double sided paddle strop with 1 micron and .5 micron paste, and a .25 micron diampnd sprayed felt hone. So afterimdone with the 4/8k and the 12k the blades have a nice drag on my thumb nail. When.i then move to the pasred strop after about 5-15 laps the blade doesnt drag. Any thoughts?

Have you tried to test shave before using the pasted strops? I would like to hear how the shaves are off of the stones to see if that's where the problems can be. How do the edges pop on arm or leg hair, pully or poppin smooth?

I would say strop inbetween your rotations and test shave to see how your edge is coming along, less is more when honing it sounds like you may be doing too much and may not need the pasted strop especially if your coming off of a 12k jnat

thanks for the advice. i thought the finer grits just polished and refined the edge. ill give it a try.

First, don't do the thumb nail test after setting the bevel. Second, what is your Japanese 12k stone? I assume it to be a synthetic hone but please clarify.

For your own edification and progress, hone the razor just to the 8k level and then strop it (no paste) and see how the shave is. It should be able to shave just fine at this stage. If not, then your problem is the lower rather than the higher grits. If it does shave, then move up to the 12k and strop and shave. If it's still fine, then move on to the pastes. My point is that you will need to experiment in order to get a sense of progress (or lack of it) at each stage. This is how you will learn what does and does not work.

Right, shavings off the 8K should be nice and easy. Back in the day, meaning a year and a half ago lol, I would shave off the 8K all the time and had no problem with it being a bad shave.

so i followed the 15/15 10/10 5/5 3/3 1/3 1/3 pyrimad on my 4k/8k norton. afterwards i did 10 laps on the 12k. both razors sharpened very nicely. when do i use the .5 micron pasted strop. do i start out on the higher grits when the blade starts to tug a little?

It depends on how degraded the edge had gotten, usually a 12k or the 8k can do a touch up.