Thread: When good shaves go bad the first thing I do is...

I do the same as Wolfpack34...leaded linen strop...30 laps, then leather 50 laps. PbO is the way for me. Always refreshes!

If I feel a razor is starting to drop off in the sharpness department I'll make a mental note for the next shave. This means that the razor still shaves but feels like the edge could be better and stropping no longer does the trick. The next step is 10 laps of chrome ox, which is usually enough to keep it going for a long time. After 3 paste touch ups I'll bust out a hone, unfortunately that means my hones don't see a lot of use

A lot can be said for being proactive in edge maintenance. If you need to take drastic steps to refresh an edge that indicates that you let the edge slip a bit too much .

Grab the styptic pencil...
After that is taken care of grab a different blade.
Post shave inspect and determine the fate of said culprit,
and honestly on more than rare occasion said culprit is me.

I have enough razors so that when one starts to deteriorate I put it aside and when I've accumulated 4 or so I'll hone them. I'll either use my Escher or the Gomyuko. I'm pretty sensitive to a dull blade so maybe 20 to 30 strokes does the trick.

About once a month, I'll do 4 laps on a Nani12k, and it keeps my razor fresh. Bear in mind, I only shave 2-3 times a week. There is a thread somewhere here that calls this "the continual hone method".

I grab another blade from my seven day role and finish shaving.Seven laps on scrubleather/CrOx fixes the blade that was pulling

I do the same thing as Ryan82 that I will finish the shave since the razor isn't that bad, but doesn't have that super smooth sharp edge feeling except that if I feel that my beard prep was off I will give it one more chance and if that doesn't work it is time for a touch up. I try not to wait till the razor is pulling hairs. A few laps on CrOx or a few laps on my finisher will bring it back to that freshly honed feeling. I find that alot of times the second chance revealed that I was just lazy, impatient or both with the beard prep and didn't need a touch up. Rushing at times seems to be the cause. I just need remember to take it slow and relaxe.

I took my old Dovo Bismarck to my Nani 12k for my first attempt at refreshing a razor on a stone. 15 nice, light laps, little bit of water, back and forth, and aside from putting a nice finish on the blade, really restored it to a nice shave ready edge.

Usually I just go crox on the back of an old strop, but figured after going to the crox twice already, it was time to give the old Dovo a bit better treatment on an actual stone and it brightened it right up!

It depends on how the razor was treated prior. If it was honed on a Jnat, I'll raise a light slurry with a tomo and hone it a bit on that before going to plain water. If it was honed on synthetics, I'll go to my 12k for 5-10 passes then to the 20k until it up and running again. The 12k cuts predictably fast but the 20k is a little less predictable in how much is needed.

Originally Posted by OCDshaver

It depends on how the razor was treated prior. If it was honed on a Jnat, I'll raise a light slurry with a tomo and hone it a bit on that before going to plain water. If it was honed on synthetics, I'll go to my 12k for 5-10 passes then to the 20k until it up and running again. The 12k cuts predictably fast but the 20k is a little less predictable in how much is needed.

Aside from 12k....I didn't understand a single word you wrote!