barber stone every shave

I've been str8 shaving for about 4 months. I have a moderate beard and use a Dovo and two other nice vintage blades ,maker unk. I have watched Lynns video and gotten the perscribed 4,000/8,000 Norton stones. Perhaps due to my inexperience in honing, I find I need two blades to finish the job even after honing and stropping. Yes honing every shave.
Recently I've taken to having a few swipes ,maybe 6 on a barbers hone then stroping on a pasted strop and then ,leather strop.
I find this works well and can now use only one blade. Any coments or insights?
My wish would be to hone once a month and then strop it up on the leather. At least that is what I've seen from others here.
Regardless, I will continue to use the sr8.
Thanks Al

I'm no honemeister, but I have rehabed at least 20 ebay junkers to shave ready, so here's my two bits.

1. Are your stones lapped flat?

2. If you set the bevel correctly in the first place it would last as long as you wanted in your first post, assuming your stropping technique is appropriate. Poor stropping can wreck a shave ready blade super fast.

3. If your barber hone is really slow/fine, you aren't doing any real harm to your blade yet...yet. If it cuts fast/coarse, you could be overhoning. See below.

4. How many passes are you making on the 4k/8k/barber hone? Too many passes and you could be overhoning, that would lead to a very quick edge breakdown like you describe. Some folks on this forum like the pyramid method to prevent an overhoned edge. I like backhoning myself, but YMMV.

It sounds as if your razor is not sharp enough. It takes time, skill and patience to hone a razor. Nobody does it right first time. Some give up, because they just can not do it. It's best to watch and learn from somebody who knows what they are doing.

Once a razor is honed and stropped sharp, it should shave you well for a long time with only a stropping on a leather strop on a daily basis.

You need to watch the videos on how to strop. Gently on a very taught strop is the way to go.

You may need to send one of your razors to a professional to fully understand what "shave ready" means.

You will then have a target to aim at. One last thing. When you get the razor back, don't even open the blade until you are ready to shave. Just touching the edge can take away some of the comfort of a shave ready razor. Gently, delicately, no force, just the weight of the razor, no pressure are all words that you need to keep in your mind when using stropping or honing a professionally sharpened razor.

For e bay razors which need an edge to be established, well.... sometimes you need to apply pressure. But to be honest, unless you have been rough with your blades, this should not apply to you.

Don't give up, you will get there.

I'm having a similar problem - I have to go to my pasted strops too often. I've been told that means the bevel or edge probably isn't right, and that you can mask an inadequately honed razor if you used the pasted strops over and over, but you should probably see if the edge has been rolled or wasn't quite right to begin with.

I'm now shaving with a Lynn honed razor to see if I have to go to the pastes as often. so far I haven't so my guess (I've been doing this four months too and having the same problem so I'm only guessing) is you might want to send one of your razors to Lynn for sharpening and see if you have the same issue going forward.

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Originally Posted by English

It sounds as if your razor is not sharp enough. ... You may need to send one of your razors to a professional to fully understand what "shave ready" means...

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+1 on this. Unless you want to do it the hard way, I think this would give you some great benchmarks for duration between honing, etc.

Also, it would help you narrow down your problems. If it's stropping, you would know within the first few shaves. If it's your honing, your shave ready razor should last the "normal" duration.

Plus, it's just neat to get a razor honed by a honemeister. I may still do that one of these days...

I really don't know enough about this to comment, but that has yet to be an effective deterrent to my running off at the keyboard. From what I understand, if the shave quality deteriorates after the first few strokes, it is an indication of "over-honing" or raising a very fine burr on the edge which crumbles when it contacts the whiskers and results in a ragged edge having to finish the shave - which it can't do well. This condition of over-honing can be diagnosed before shaving by using something like the Radio Shack hand held microscope which will show an illuminated line at the edge. This reflected light indicates the presence of a burr which is not in the same plane as the bevel. This burr being on the order of ultra, ultra fine foil is too weak to support the razor's attack on a pretty tough medium: whiskers.

Getting rid of this burr is the key; how you do it, I dunno as I haven't as yet had to go back to undo my attempts at honing. Among the suggestions of the masters for remediation is to back hone on the stone or run the razor a couple of times through some paper, slicing off a few fine ribbons. Of course then one must go back to one's finishing hones and restore the edge, checking frequently to assure oneself that the dreaded over-honing has not again raised its evil burr.

Do you have a coticule hone for finishing? They are supposed to be over-hone proof. Hopefully one or several of the master meisters will home in on this hone issue and provide better or more complete information.

Taking hone breaks during the shave is something one should not have to do.

good luck,

Usually when you overhone you do raise a burr or a fold on the edge but that doesn't happen after a few strokes, it happens from stroke one. Usually such a razor will seem to glide over your face or sometimes skip but in fact its not cutting anything. Sometimes if you hone to a point that its not overhoned but the edge is just too delicate and it will kind of crumble or disintegrate on you and that can happen also with the first stroke or can happen several shaves later depending on the state of the edge. Usually such a razor will give a rather uncomfortable shave until the edge goes.

If you follow proper honing and stropping techniques, the only problem is that you'll wear out your razors quicker

I'm in a similar "camp" in that I often need to burnish the my razors edge often with my Swatty. This is predominantly with a Dove Special, although I do seem to do so fairly with my Super Gnome, just not as often. It could be that the Dovo has a softer steel that just doesn't hold up long enough. I'm looking forward toward getting the "Shave Ready B&B Le Grelot" when it comes available. That should be a real eye opener, as I have never shaved with anything I haven't sharpened myself (or at least maintained).

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.

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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.

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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

I wouldn't try that at home.

The maestro is...well...the maestro and it all comes together for him.

There are some people that do things that fly in the face of convention yet they do an expert job. How do they do it? I don't know.

For sure, I agree with you.

Actually, it looks like he doesn't even NEED those stones, ...he's got that magic thumbpad!... :)