Thread: My Mastro Livi razor, at last: a wonderful life experience!

Originally Posted by taskind

May be this thread is not okey for this video . But this video gooooeess to the people who talks about Mastro Livi's hand palm stropping.

This video has been quite popular among Italian wet shavers. It also proves - once again - old barbers have always stropped their razors with hand palm. And this is what Mastro Livi keeps on telling when he talks about the old times when all of his barber clients, besides giving him their razor for fixing and honing (Mastro Livi is in this business since 1955, carrying on the heritage of six generations), they all stropped straight razors with hand palms.
I too remember my grand father doing the same and I am doing this as well since the day I started using a straight razor. It works, it works very, very well.

when I see this palm stropping in the video, I remembered an old barber which my grandfather took me for hair cut. In Turkey it has been normally forbidden to use straight razors in public barbers for sanitary reasons since maybe 60's or 70's. But there was one old barber who used straight razors for his friends, I still remember his strops hanging on the wall. He was doing this hand stropping to make us little kids laugh.. but he was making this palm stropping faster than the barber in the video, and we were looking at his hand . Sometimes he kept one of his fingers yelling ooo it cut offf.... oldies goldies..

I also remember my barber who did this thing with the razor while he shaved. It 'a nice memory of when I was a kid. Now I do too and I find that it works on the blade of the razor.

Sorry if this has already been mentioned in previous posts, but if it was, I missed it...

What 3k hone does Mastro Livi use?

Originally Posted by AndrewJM

Sorry if this has already been mentioned in previous posts, but if it was, I missed it...

What 3k hone does Mastro Livi use?

He uses a yellow 3k kai hone.

Sunday shave has always been a special shave. Not only because I have more time for this, but also because I usually pick one among the finest straight razors of my collection and it usually is a Mastro Livi razor. This one proved to be an absolutely superior razor: it is still keen and very sharp like the day I bought it. Not to mention, shave was pleasurable and perfect.

Sorry to bring up bad memories, but it seems the only reason to take a Mastro Livi blade to a 1K hone is if it had been seriously damaged to the point of destroying the bevel.

Here's my guess at what transpired: owner's son takes Mastro Livi blade outside to play with. Makes cool sparks on sidewalk and whittles some tree branches. Dad finds razor nearly destroyed and takes blade to a 1K with hopes of restoring it. Doesn't succeed in setting the bevel properly as relic chipping remains, this is co-witnessed by severe (and anti-geometric) scratching remaining on the bevel. Owner proceeds through the honing process up to his Coti. Shave test = OUCH! Owner logic "Man I honed that sucker through a progression from 1K through my Coti and it still shaves like ass, what's up?" Owner looks at edge, sees relic chipping, and assumes it's due to faulty metallurgy, since he just honed it.

I wonder if the razor changed owners before winding up in Mastro Livi's shop for repair? The areas of the blade which appear to still be chipped are reflections of light. Look closely, pause the vid, take a screen shot, and do the same with a screen shot from before the repair. it becomes very obvious that what we're seeing after Mastro Livi hones the edge is not chipping. It's light and shadow anomalies.

The real story has been obscured, but this I know based on visual evidence: That blade edge had been seriously damaged and the owner did not properly reset the bevel prior to progressing through his Coti. Sorry, the truth sometimes hurts.

Thus endeth the sermon. My move is over, the new house is set up and unpacked, and life has returned to normal. Antonello, Stephano, all you regulars, Greetings! It's nice to be home

This can be a guess although I have no idea of what happened to that poor straight razor. To me using a 1K with a razor having a fully set bevel simply is non sense. I have a 1k and I think I used it few times in order to reset and restore a truly damaged razor. I also use this stone with my kitchen and chef knives, but this is another story, of course.
I do not know what really happened to that razor before it was shipped back to Mastro Livi, but I was personally there when it was unpacked and restored. The damages on the blade however say a lot and there really were chips in the edge and this also was evident with a naked eye. What Mastro Livi did can be seen in my video, including the result he got after honing with a coticule. Moreover, I now own that razor and I am keeping an eye on it in order to see whether it shows chips in the edge and I do this by using a microscope. So far, I could not see any chip in the edge and the razor shaves wonderfully. This carbon steel is absolutely amazing and super smooth.
As for the images about the edge seen under the microscope, the effects are created by shiny and polished steel reflecting light and, moreover, we should also consider the microscope Mastro Livi uses has a 400x power and at that magnification even a grain of sand may look like a mountain, even though the edge is absolutely straight and this can be seen in the pictures I provided in one of my previous posts. And, as a matter of fact, my USB microscope has a 800x power, therefore it could even worse things on this regard.
I don't know what really happened with that razor but there is something I am happy for: I am now the owner of that razor and it is a magnificent shaver!
I am also glad to know your move is over and life has returned to normal. I guess we are now waiting for you to come to Italy and have some good time together, in good company, with nice food and wine and, of course, talking about straight razors all the time!

P.S.: I am very glad to see Latin in your signature.

Dear Razorguy, as you have been to Mastro Livi's workshop several times and had chance to speak with him about every aspects of razors, will you please enlight me. Mastro Livi, strops the razor on the chromium side of the strop more than 20 laps but only half of it on the leather side. Acording to what we were told if you strop on chromioum oxide about 5 laps, it will give you a smooth edge, but if you strop more than 10-15, it will make the edge dull. And we should strop more than 40 on leather side. But mastro Livi's razors have both sharp and smooth edge. I try to understand this , This is my assumption only but, Perhaps he hones the razors on 3000 or 5000 grit stones and then he directly strops on cOx, But we normally hone the razors on 12000 or even 3000 grits. What can you say about that.
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I guess we should not consider what we see in Mastro Livi videos when it is about honing and stropping. Not because his technique is not good (on the contrary, it is magnificently excellent) but we should simply consider what he does in the videos is related to brand new and freshly made razors only. We should understand putting an edge to a freshly made razor is absolutely different from keeping an edge. The former does not have any bevel, the latter already has a properly set bevel and therefore needs a truly different honing/stropping method.
As for counting laps, I have always believed counting makes no sense at all. Mastro Livi never counts laps and he says it makes no sense. I agree on this. There is no universal number or magic pattern in order to get a sharp edge. In my experience - which is so far from being compared to Mastro Livi's, of course - it all depends on the edge condition. A very dull edge basically needs a different job than an edge needing just a touch up.
As for Mastro Livi, he says he never counts laps: he simply "feels" the edge and he stops when he feels it is enough for that edge and steel. This is his talent, of course, and probably something he acquired over his 60 years of experience in honing and repairing razors on a daily basis.
Mastro Livi will never tell you "use a 3k, then a 5k, then a 8k, then a 12k and so on". To him, honing patterns does not exist and counting makes no sense. You simply have to assess the edge and therefore you will know what hone/stone you are going to use or you simply need to strop it on crox. He of course uses grit progression when he starts from a corase hone and he will of course go on with finer grit hones and, sometimes, crox. I personally witnessed he does not always use crox on razors. It depends: he says he uses it when needed and the same applies to any hone/stone. I guess, understanding what an edge needs in order to be sharpened is the key.
Once again, to me following a certain pattern in honing makes no sense. It all depends on the edge condition. It would be like the assumption that every disease must be cured with antibiotics but, we all know, a cold is very different from flu or fever and they are cured with different medicines. In fact, we use medicines according to what has been diagnosed and there is no "panacea". Likewise, if your razor simply needs a touch up, stropping on crox will do, on the contrary, if you need to restore a destroyed edge, you will probably need a 1k hone and follow a certain progression. Like to say, your mileage may vary.