Thread: Question for honesters

Out of all the diff blades and grinds of brand named razors you have come accross,are there some blades that you run through your gamit of hones that will not give you a squeeky BBS vs other blades. Or you can get that type of shave out of any brand name razor you hone?thanks

honester

What's in a name ?

Yahh, Zeepks are only good for the first few strokes
But seriously, if the bevel is right "usually" the shave is right. Zeepks excepted.

Slightly rewording your question...

Originally Posted by nessmuck

... are there some blades that ... that will not give you a [good shave]...?

I suspect you never meant to include cheap ass Pakistan razors in your question. Restricting my answer to vintage razors, my answer is no.

If it is vintage...
If it is not compromised by rust...

It will hone and shave well. That is my opinion.

Typically, I don't see a big difference between the well known razors like Bokers and Wade & Butchers and no name vintage razors. (I suspect they all came out of the same companies anyway.)

That being said, I would like to immediately quasi-contradict myself. Even though vintage razors ~ all hone and shave well, occasionally I run into a razor that seems to hone itself and almost strops itself. It just seems to be a cut above other similar, or even identical razors. I don't know what to tell you here. (But, I'm straying from your question which was about whether some razors won't shave well. And, I'm talking about the difference between well and very well.)

If the blade can be salvaged, it will shave. Cheap crap excluded.

This was a question for honesters

No i dont want that title
But i have one blade that i really enjoyed honing(the others remain less then desired)

Oh well maybe ill pick up some tips in london

Yeah, less of the honester-calling..!

You might find that you prefer the feel of different makes of razor over others, but as long as the razor is made of good steel and is not totally shot with rust or wear it will take a good shaving edge.

I do find that some razors take a better edge on one set of hones to another though. For example, I found that the Sheffield wedges I've honed so far took better edges using Shapton on glass stones than the Naniwa superstones. But then I usually find that hollow ground razors take a better edge on the Naniwa stones to the Shaptons.

This isnt a hard and fast rule, just what I've found through playing around with different razors and stones and in my experience so far.

What I usually do is start out on the Naniwa stones and see how I go. If the razor isnt really taking a proper bevel or I dont like the finished edge I'll swap to the Shaptons and try those out.

On a couple of particularly tricky razors I've used the 1k Shapton to set the bevel, swapped back to the 1k Naniwa for 20 strokes and then progressed up through the Naniwa 3k, 8k and 12k and then a finisher. The 1k Shapton is a harder stone and a faster cutter than the 1k Naniwa and using the Shapton really helped get a good bevel set before continuing with the Naniwas. I used that method recently on a hollow ground razor that was butterknife dull when I got it and it worked very well.

So my approach to different razors will change depending on how the edges are developing and how they feel, but one way or the other I always get a sharp smooth edge. So far I've not had a good quality razor that wont take an edge.

Some vintage razors simply will not take an edge that is sharp enough, smooth enough, or will last throughout a shave for me. I attribute that to an issue with the tempering process of the steel in that particular razor, and waste no more time and effort on it, if two or three honing sessions and test shaves do not show improvement. Most vintage razors can take a decent edge, IME.