From an email to a friend today
I wrote this in an email this afternoon, and thought I'd share it with the community. Nothing new here, but a nice comment about the SRP gang:
I had a nice shave, which is a surprisingly deep meditation. I started by re-honing one of my razors, going all the way back to a 1000-grit hone, which is the coarsest one we use for them. At that grit you "set the bevel," which means re-creating a sharp V at the edge. Stropping between honings tends to convert that V-shaped profile into a more U-shaped one, and if you go to the finer hones while there's still a U-shape, all you'll do is polish the sides of the U. You won't do anything at all for the cutting edge. Honing is also very meditative and contemplative; you have to be completely present for the activity or you'll damage the very fine edge instead of improve it. From 1000 grit (grits of this size will pass through a mesh of ~1/1000 inch) I went to 4000 (mesh of 1/4000 inch) until I had honed away the 1k scratch pattern, then to 6000 until that had honed away the 4k pattern, then to 8000. Many people stop at 8000; it's a good test of your honing skill if you can get a comfortable shave from an 8k stone. I know I can, so moved on to my 12k hone, which is a miraculous block of material. It hones so quickly and polishes so smoothly; it's hard to believe that one hone could do both things so well. From the 12k I went to a natural hone, a Charnley Forest, which is similar to Arkansas stones but was quarried in the UK up to about a century ago. Charnley hones were created by cottage industrialists; I don't know if anyone made their primary living by collecting the mineral hunks and turning them into hones. It was very labor-intensive; the mineral (novaculite) is extremely hard. The original market for Charnleys was carpenters, but now straight-razor shavers treasure them. They are one of the holy grails of honers. They're pretty, too--green with red inclusions. They look very organic. It's hard to assign grit sizes to natural hones; the best you can do is to recommend using them before or after artificials of known grit. My favorite thing about the 12k hone is the way it bridges the gap between the 8k and the naturals.
So, after about an hour of honing and a few minutes of stropping, then the ritual whipping of the lather, I enjoyed a shave like I haven't had since the last time I honed so carefully. When it's properly sharp, the blade removes barbs as a side-effect of gently scraping away the lather. You could scrape off the lather with a butter knife. When you do it with a properly honed razor, it feels the same as a butter knife but leaves a swath of smooth face in its wake. It's such a small, fine-detail achievement, but it's deeply rewarding too. The straight-shaving user group is a refuge of calm, friendly, generous, and articulate men. It's not a random cross-section of society. There are some oddballs and goofballs, too. I'm probably one of them. My fellow goofball is Carl, from somewhere in Australia. We just bring it out in each other. Fun community. Actually, we're all oddballs there. And we're proud!
