Last week I finally received the shipment of this Heljestrand MK42 Viking in stainless steel. Accustomed with full hollows carbon MKs (1,31,32), this razor proved to be a completely new beast to me. New weight, new grind, new steel.
Name: P1000734.jpg Views: 334 Size: 32.8 KB
Yesterday I took some time and guts to hone it. Besides asking help for the new grind on this forum (thank you guys), I took my usual route to hone this razor, to compare it with my other razors after all.
Well, this thing don't even have a parallel sided fringe section near the edge. Besides somewhat concave, it is almost wedge, so two layers of tape to avoid widen the bevel and I took it to run some laps on 1200 wet-dry half-worn sandpaper over glass to "harness" things up, so to the dry translucent arkansas until the edge shines and tops arm hair and CrO paddle - just in case. After that, just plain hanging strop.
What can I tell you is this razor consumed a LOT more elbow grease on the Arkansas than any other razor I have to top arm hair.
Today by morning I took the usual procedure to shave with it. After shower, tabac soap lather, cold water only (drough season here... very hot and 12-15% humidity, warm water dries as alcohol) and... not the better shave I had, indeed. I have some lessons to learn with this new toy.
It shaves, but needs a higher angle (yes, I am burnt and had lots of red points in my face ). I also missed the sound the full hollows talk (rekk rekk rekk). This one is silent, only near the ear I hear a lower sound (ruff, ruff, ruff), so I have to get used to.
Styptic? Alum? No, I didn't dare.
My usual cooled Tanqueray aftershave splash was cursing level.

Obviously, that pair of scales is to blame.