Ask Dave Stephens to hone a blade

[JeffE]

Gentlemen, I'm not sure it needs to be said here, but if you have never asked Dave Stephens (Cannonfodder is his name here) to hone a blade or restore a razor for you, you are really missing something.

Let me start by saying that I have had many blades honed by many other members here, and all have done excellent, fantastic work, with super-fast service, and are gentlemen to deal with. So please take my praise of Dave in context.

Maybe it is a matter of taste, but Dave really makes his blades noticeably sharper than anyone else I've ever used. Like freaky-deaky sharp. So sharp they feel sticky when you touch the edge. So sharp you're actually waiting for the blade to dull a bit so it isn't so scary. So sharp you don't even hear the blade cutting through the whiskers. You know, scalpel sharp -- no, lightsaber sharp!

As it happened, with this last group of razors I sent to Dave, I also included one for honing that he had rescaled for me several months before. It's a beautiful, huge W&B blade, and he made a pair of black pearl acrylic scales that are just beautiful. And so get this -- he saw the scales that he had previously made for me, mentioned that he didn't like how the pivot felt, AND THEN COMPLETELY REPLACED THE WEDGE AND PINS (at no cost to me) so that the scales would be up to his standards. Now, I didn't notice anything was wrong about the scales when I sent him the blade, but I can see now that they work much better. How many people take that kind of pride in their work?!

Anyway, I know everyone here knows Dave well, so this probably doesn't even need to be said -- except for the few, proud noobs out there like me who don't yet know the full extent of Dave's awesomeness. And for those who know him, I hope you get a chance to try his honing again soon. I have no idea what combination of black magic witchcraft and materials science nanotechnology he uses to get those blades so sharp, but damn, the ones he just sent me feel like they are about one atom wide at the edge. Enjoy!