Quote Originally Posted by Jack0458 View Post
I'm wondering how people decide not to just strop and decide to refresh with a coarser strop prior to the leather final strop. Also, when do you decide not to use the coarser strop and go right to stones, basically starting over?

I've been learning to hone and strop for a few months so up til now all I have been doing is just keeping the edge as sharp as I could. Good news though. Approximately 3-4 weeks ago I began being able to cut hairs on my arm above the skin and cutting hairs consistently using the hanging hair test. I consider this the beginning of being able to create shave ready edges. Just the beginning. I still have improvement and better edges to look forward to. For now, to learn how much sharpness is lost on one shave I try the hanging hair test after I shave. I can never cut a hanging hair after I shave. Then I have done up to 100 passes on a leather strop. At that point when I drag the hair over the edge the hair vibrates significantly but seldom cuts. But if I do 20-30 passes on a poly-webbing strop with .5 micron CBN on it the edge will cut hanging hairs some but not that consistently. Add 50-70 passes on the leather strop and then the edge is back to cutting the hair on every attempt. Sometimes I may drag the hair about 1/4" then it cuts. Sometimes it cuts immediately. That's when I put the razor down considering it ready for the next shave. I'm thinking I should just shave then do 100 passes on the leather strop to get ready for the next shave and see how it goes. I think what I'm doing now is refreshing the edge after every shave by using both strops. After I shave and then strop 50-100 passes on the leather strop and it won't cut a hanging hair, is this razor still considered shave ready? I have been shaving for months now with a razor that won't cut a hanging hair. I guess that answer's my question. I'm not sure that counts though because I was shaving with non-shve ready edges only because I couldn't get them any sharper.

I don't think most of you guys go through all this between every shave and I don't want to do it either. Not for the rest of my life anyway. I may be an odd-ball. Has anyone else gone through trying to learn how much sharpness is lost on one shave on your face? I'm sure this loss will be different per person based on any number of things like thickness of a beard, whiskers and other stuff. Maybe the type of steel the razor is made of will effect edge retention. Since I don't want to be cutting hanging hairs much longer I am wondering how you decide it's time to either refresh or completely re-hone the razor. Do you start cutting yourself? Does the razor try to drag your skin off your face because it won't cut the whiskers?

When do you consider your razors NOT shave ready and in need of more than an every day stropping? I guess if I just do a simple stropping between a few shaves I'll learn how the razors I hone hold up on my face. Maybe I should try doing nothing to the razor except drying it between shaves to see how long the shave stays comfortable.
Hey Jack. I used to do the same thing as you as far as testing the blade with a HHT and in fact still do if I have the time. This is such a personal thing and very subjective that you will have to find your own way through experimenting. Once a razor is "shave ready" there is a long way to go before it is as sharp as I like it. Sure it shaves without tugging or skipping but it's a ways to go before I get effortless BBS shaves with that same razor. In order to maintain this level of sharpness it takes about 30 seconds more for me by doing 10-15 laps on FeOx and then stropp and once a week I use CrOx. If I am in a hurry I accept a "less than" which is still way above the "shave ready" mark. Then again I guess it's how you define shave ready. Back to the subjective thing. So my advice would be to find what works for you by experimenting for yourself.