Thread: DE blade sharpening/stropping

I think that TSD is The Shave Den...not sure on the other.

When I was DE shaving I never knew you could do this. Weird.

I'll try this on my Gem Micromatic SE blades when I feel like using it again. Hard to not use the straights though!

Originally Posted by 2Sharp

My brother told me he used to sharpen his DE blades by rubbing them on the inside of a straight sided drinking glass with his finger. He was in the Army and economizing the best way he could.

bj

A Lillicrap hone is tailor made for the job, from what I read they worked fairly well, they sold millions of them and they can be found on the 'bay quite often.

A Lillicrap's Hone

I have seen those on ebay but haven't been able to get one as cheap as I would like. Eventually I gave up on it. I did find one that was paper based and seemed to have a sheet of sandpaper glued into it. It did not make for a very good shave, even with a brand new blade. I'll probably try just a kitchen glass or mug next time I use one.

I have tried using the inside of a drinking lass and it worked okay, the blade was noticably sharper.

I like the idea of being able to do it on the palm of your hand too, simple is best!

it seems to work for me. I have gotten 6 shaves so far. I usually get 2-3.

You can protect your DE blades the same way I protect my straight razors. You can just loosen the DE handle slightly and then submerge the entire blade into a 0.5% solution of mineral oil in isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol. The alcohol will cause residual water to quickly evaporate and the oil will remain to protect the blade. That's all you need to do.

with the price of DE blades being so cheap, pitch the blade and use a new one.

if you are looking to hone a blade to prolong its life so as to use the least number of blades as is necessary, you might as well try straight shaving...in theory you could purchase one blade and learn to maintain it for your entire life (that beats getting 4-5 shaves out of a DE!)

I disagree. There is no reason to throw away DE blades so quickly when there are easy ways to maintain them to allow them to last much longer. My oil/isopropanol method allows a used razors to remain protected during long periods of storage.