Thread: Mastro Livi... Is it just me?

I often wondered how much of his edges depend upon a 3 foot long loom strop with voluminous heaps of CroOx lathered-on.
There was a blade-slapping honing video I just could not wrap my head around......
Spine-up. a few minutes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=wXkjXfuNbpg

The snake razor video? I think he used a 300 grit to raise a foil, ripped it off and then did a lot of half strokes with varying degrees of pressure before the strop attack. I would guess his bevels are quite convex and if you did one pass across a bevel setter without tape you would probably be behind the apex on the contact patch.

At the very least you would think with that heavy handed style the blade would at least be zeroed to sit on a stone right but if I recall his water stones also don't appear to be trued with any regularity. It's a salad of variables

FME, any semblance of a proper straight bevel would be rounded beyond a 'touch-up' on a hone after some of that strop. (IF it had one).
Either buy the strop and keep-on keeping on OR ruin your Livi bevel by starting all over again....

One thing is for certain. With Lynn's salesmanship and the name 'Maestro', he had a really good run for a good while.

Fans will get some customs legendary status quickly and after a bit, nobody talks of them at all.

Originally Posted by sharptonn

I often wondered how much of his edges depend upon a 3 foot long loom strop with voluminous heaps of CroOx lathered-on.
There was a blade-slapping honing video I just could not wrap my head around......
Spine-up. a few minutes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=wXkjXfuNbpg

Among other things he does, how he flips the razor while "honing" and "stropping" is a red flag for me, I know people do it without issues, but I find it a poor way of doing things.

I have seen that video before. Looks like some heavy stropping on the CroOx while raising the spine. And that honing progression is like nothing I've ever seen before.

He made one video of a razor that was returned saying that they used a coarse stone that resulted in chips. He then proceeded to remove the chips with a belt sander. Lol.

With respect to the previous two comments - when you have that many years of experience and can feel exactly what's going on, those methods may work without issue. Or maybe not. But try to keep an open mind. I know that when I start out with something new, I have to do it carefully and by the book, but after a while I can "freehand" a bit.

I had a few of his razors come through my hands, and they felt like workhorse shavers to me. Perhaps not refined in the way some other blades are, but they honed up easily and well and shaved smoothly. Couldn't comment beyond that anecdotal evidence, and certainly not on anything recent.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

With respect to the previous two comments - when you have that many years of experience and can feel exactly what's going on, those methods may work without issue. Or maybe not. But try to keep an open mind. I know that when I start out with something new, I have to do it carefully and by the book, but after a while I can "freehand" a bit.

I had a few of his razors come through my hands, and they felt like workhorse shavers to me. Perhaps not refined in the way some other blades are, but they honed up easily and well and shaved smoothly. Couldn't comment beyond that anecdotal evidence, and certainly not on anything recent.

Agreed. I wasn't trying to be critical, just noting that its very different from what I've seen. I do most of the work on my hones with Japanese strokes followed by downstroking on each stone up to 8k. Many will criticize my method, but I get great results.

Remember, he doesn't only make razors. He makes the full range of cutlery so many of his unorthodox technique are probably borrowed from doing that kind of work. The bottom line is it works for him.

Of the livi's I've had, with two exceptions they were really great shavers and were shave ready out of the box period. One of the exceptions was a razor with scale issues and the other was part of the SRP group buy and it looked like he did the bevel and forgot to do anything more on it.