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It looks like the chrome ox on the paddle is making the edge coarser, not finer (!)

I'm starting to get the feeling that maybe abrasive pastes became popular because most people only owned one...

I PMed Puffah, since his advice so far has been spot-on & I wasn't sure he was still following this thread. Here is his advice, enshrined for posterity:

Quote:
Originally...

Hey Blue, I have an unbelievably tough beard & do 3-pass shaves every day with the same razor. Until recently, I also had some issues with my honing technique which you will see in detail earlier in...

Wow Seraphim, thanks for posting those pics! Very valuable stuff. To your question: rounding is not such a bad thing, it does give a smoother & more comfortable shave, but next time you touch up, you...

Glen & I agreed to do the experiment using a Double Arrow, a very good shaver with a similar grind to the W&B.

I seem to have a new problem now. Immediately after honing, I have a devastatingly...

The mail delivery service in my area is so incredibly lousy, I'm getting cold feet about mailing the W&B. Just the other day they delivered a sizeable IRS refund check to my next door neighbor, and...

I'm not smart, but I'll take Glen up on his offer anyway. PM sent.

Sixgun: it's a wide but paper thin full hollow and the steel is not very hard. Maybe that's why it's so delicate.

Poona: you might want to try the backhoning technique that Puffah describes in...

Update: using my new method, I still notice deterioration after my 3rd shave, but the magnitude of the deterioration is much less severe. Under my Cr02 method, the 3rd shave was no longer BBS in the...

Update:

Puff my man, you are a genius. All you guys who suspected there was a problem with my honing were right. The problem is, as Puff says, barber hones are particularly prone to raising a...

Gssixgun; yes, all the hones I listed in my progression are barber hones. It's hard to know what the grits really are, but the coarsest one seems like it's around 1k and the finest is around 10K or...

Hey Kevin, I didn't think you were busting my chops, I'm just trying to anticipate questions before they arise to keep thee thread down to a reasonable length. In text you lose cues like facial...

By this point in the game, my honing is pretty consistent. It's not that I didn't get BBS shaves before, it's that (1) the first one or two after honing were lousy, and (2) by the end of the month,...

I don't understand it either, but my blades pass the HHT for the first time ever, and shave well right after honing. So I'm going to keep at it & see what happens.

Randy has said that the linen is...

Cool I'll try that. I have a big slab of chrome ox in paste form, like rouge, that I got from woodcraft. Maybe I'll give away 1" slices of it, since I have such an excess.

Riddle me this, Batman... If I can't do touch-ups on the linen, can I do touch-ups on a fine hone, & burnish the edge on linen afterwards? Then I wouldn't need the chrome ox. The reason I started...

Update: I must be certifiably insane. I was up at midnight last night doing shaving experiments instead of getting sleep like I should.

Anyway, I waxed my linen strop with a candle & smoothed it...

Well, I figured out that I ruined the edge with the newspaper by not stretching it tight over a flat surface like the other poster recommended. I'm guessing the newspaper curled up enough as I was...

I know. It's OK, all my razors are $20 eBay specials. If I grind them down to stumps, they can die happy knowing that they sacrificed their lives in fulfillment of their one & only purpose. But even...

Thx for the tip on the microscope, Randy. Do you need 30X? There are 20X jeweler's loupes out there that are nice & pocket-size.

This canvas strop is the strop from hell.I soaked it all night in...

Hey Bart,

Barber hones can be used wet or dry. They're a little more forgiving of mediocre technique when wet. Dry takes a VERY light touch, but I think you get a better result.

The convex edge...

The following progression of barber hones:
A really coarse Swaty (around 1K grit)
Cushioned strop hone
Gem hone
Lithide hone

Depending on the razor, it will take around 20 laps on each (maybe...

OK, I'm in the process of soaking all the crud off my linen strop. While I'm waiting, I decided to try stropping on plain newspaper as a substitute. It turned my razor into a butter knife. Worst...

I'm convexing it into oblivion with frequent touch-ups on Cr02 (I have a harsh beard, plus I'm a maniac about getting perfect shaves).

For starters I'm going with the wire-edge theory. I re-honed...

Bevel burnishing, eh? I can't see that with my 10X lupe (came to me by way of my grandpa, who was a jeweler). As for linen...I have an old strop with a linen side, but it's got some fairly aggressive...