Well, just a little update here. I just had my first shave since starting this thread and the bottom line is it was a terrible shave. I just got back my freshly honed dovo 1/2 hollow and boker edelweiss. And like before went straight to the face untouched. I took extra attention to the best beard prep possible and focused on a much more flattened blade angle. Nice smooth strokes, good skin stretching and still no luck. I actually feel the quality went backwards quite a bit. And quite a bit of razor burn which I never get. I was so excited going into this one but now I feel pretty helpless.