Thread: Beginners, The 1k shave . . .

This thread has been an eye opener for me.
Yesterday I decided that I had to do something about my honing skills, since I never seem to be 100% satisfied with the shave readyness of my razors,
and I allways seem to need more hours honing than you guys here on SRP
Having read this thread with great interest , I decided to start with the basics.



Shapton 1k
Dovo prima silver steel ebenholz
Dovo paddle ( I didn´t use the CroX side )

I blunted the razor with a bevel to the side of the glass move.
40 circles on each side, 20 ordinary strokes and 20 X strokes with quite heavy pressure seemed to create some microchipping.
30 circles on each side, 20 ordinary + 20 X strokes all with light pressure makes the razor pick some of the arm hairs above the skin.
30 circles on each side, 20 ordinary + 20 X strokes all with no pressure at all, and the razor is grabbing and cutting hair about 1\3 inch above my skin ( some of the hairs atleast)
I did 20 more ultra light strokes over the hone with not even the weight of the razor ( to help the quite rugged looking edge under the microscope) that didn´t seem to help at all, so I decided to do the rest with the paddle strop.
80 strokes over the paddle and time to hit the shower.

The shave was suprisingly smooth, probably better than some I got of my 12k a couple of years ago.
I don´t want to lie, the shave was not very smooth, and the stubble on my upper lip pulled something fierce, but no razorburn and no cuts.

Never again will I spend 4-5 hours polishing a bad bevel from 6k to 30k and back to 6k again , thanks to this thread I now know what a bevel looks like when it is ready atleast on my Dovo.