Thread: Hello from Greece

Thanks Maladroit,
i have lapped Norton with the DMT 325 using the pencil grid method for about 10-15 minutes. Both sides became very smooth, especially the 8K side is like glass. The 4K is a tiny bit more coarse, i thought this is normal, please correct me if i am wrong. I also honed the edges of the stone carefully.
Also i am not intending to hone a lot of razors for now and i don't mind a little more wear on the Norton stone, so after each honing session if it looks dirty from metal particles i lap again till it's clear.

After a lot of effort i brought my razor to a very decent state.
It passes AHT, glides very nice on the face and offers a very clean shave.

...but what I've figured out is that i probably made a giant circle. The razor was not as bad as i thought initially.
My desire to get early to honing, led me to making the razor a lot worse at first. Only then i figured out what pulling and dull razor is...

I also damaged it a little due to excess pressure probably before taping (uneven spine wear).

I used a red marker to see where i am hitting the hone and found that the toe especially did not hit much.
I tried a couple of rolling x-strokes which i found difficult to perform consistently, so instead i taped with an extra layer the worn parts and
continued with the circle technique (I hope i did the right thing). In a while i had a much better bevel to continue with.

Finally i am very happy that i tried, but i could easily have destroyed the razor and be disappointed.
The next step is definitely having this or another razor professionally honed to have an indisputable reference to compare.

I remember putting a lot of excessive and uneven honewear on my razors when I first started honing. The good think is your dovo best quality isn't an expensive or rare razor that you can feel too guilty about damaging.

As you become more proficient at honing razors, you will learn to focus more on the edge and less on the spine, using techniques like canting, rolling x's, side of the stone etc. to get those stubborn areas of the edge.

To avoid honewear, some will suggest you use tape, some are against it.

My approach is a compromise between the two camps. With a completely dull razor, I like to set a new bevel on a 1k synthetic with tape on the spine. I then gently dull on glass, and reset the bevel on a coticule without tape.

Glad to hear you are getting good shaves!

Panos, welcome to our forum. As you have found out you can get advice from members and quite a bit of education from our various sources.

You seem to be headed in the correct direction and learning the basics like many of us did.
I hope you can find someone to do a honing for you. Are there any barber shops that do straight razor shaves anywhere close to you? A barber may be willing to hone your razor and let you watch.

Take care and again, welcome.
Bob

Thank you for your responses.

Some barbers close to me are using shavette style razors, i don't lose anything to ask. I am pretty sure i will find someone who knows.

Yassou Panos

Welcome to SRP! I am also relatively new to the straight razor game, as I started about a year ago. It looks like you are getting a lot of good advice already and making some good headway. And remember, no matter how things are going now, it will get better, and once you get used to everything, straight razor shaving will probably be your favorite method of shaving, if it's not already.

You should check out Lynn Abrams' videos, if you haven't already. He is the founder of this website. These videos really helped me out when I was learning how to properly use and maintain my straight razor. He has videos that should be helpful with just about everything, especially if you are learning to hone your razor. Here is a link to his Youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/LynnSAbrams/videos

Hope this helps you as much as it helped me!

Spiros

Welcome to the forum!