Thread: barber stone every shave

Originally Posted by Wildtim

My two cents:

I can't tell you what you are doing worng, but is something, I bet in the area of your stropping and shaving technique.

I go for much more than a month without a singe trip to the hone and even then I use five strokes or possibly ten on the Swaty to bring the edge back I can usually refresh the edge several times in this way before I need any more extensive work on the edge than that.

All I can say is thatt there is some area in which you are dulling your edge or not using it correctly so that you take it apart while shaving. I doubt even a busy barber had to hone once a day.

Between your trips to the swaty, do you do anything beyond leather/linen stropping (like chromium oxide) or do you literally just strop for a month and then refresh?

Just strop for a month or more, linen then leather nothing else.

I have a couple of cushion strop hones and the instructions for both say that the blade should be given five laps on the hone side and ten on the leather before each shave. I was curious about their recommended frequency although five laps on a fine grit barber's hone shouldn't produce excessive wear over time. Maybe.....

I seem to have over-honed two of my blades as well. Have been shaving for several months, and at start, all went fine, smooth shave and baby-butt-smooth cheeks and all, and then, after attempt at honing... well, razors glide over hairs, nip and pull, and skin becomes irritated...

Having read all the do's and don'ts, I went back to the 4000 did a couple of backstrokes before going down the pyramid 4k/8k 5/5 3/3 1/3 1/5 and finishing off with 10 strokes on the coticule.

Well... suma sumarum... it didn't work. Had to 'rescue' the last shave with a DE which I hate to do.

I saw a clip of (supposedly?) Mastro Livi bringing a new razor up to cutting, and at some point mid-way, he actually passes the razor's edge perpendicularly down the side of what could be a 4000 grit stone.

Has anyone done this to get rid of a burr?

check out at about 20 seconds... is that what he is doing right there? (removing burr?)

YouTube - SnakeRazor