A couple of questions on sharpness
Hi:
I'm not sure whether this belongs here or in honing, so please let me know if I'm in the wrong place. I'm just returning to SR shaving after 35+ years. I bought a new Dovo special, not made shave ready. I have experience honing my chisels and plane blades, but not razors. I have read lots of the great advice on honing on this forum, and watched a number of youtube videos.
I've done 3 shaves so far.
First shave - out of the box, just to see what it was like. It pulled going wtg, so I finished up with my DE.
Second shave - did some honing - some circular laps on the 4000, then the 8000. Stropped and shaved. The face shaved smoothly with no pulling, and was able to get a decent 2 pass on most of the face, but lots of pulling and not much cutting on the tough chin and neck stubble.
Third shave - I did a careful 20 passes on the 8000 with almost no pressure, an away from the edge stroke in case there was a burr, then 20 strokes on the canvas strop and 50 on leather. That shave was very decent, cheeks, upper lip and chin went smoothly with no puling.
But here's the issue. I was expecting to get to a sharpness where the blade would slice through the tough chin and neck growth, and it does cut it now, but it tends to 'catch' a few times before cutting. Hope I'm explaining that right. I use a light grip on the blade, and I don't want to get rough with it.
So, my questions:
- am i looking for more sharpness than I should be? I would like that blade to move through the toughest stubble without being forced. Is that unrealistic?
- if it should be that sharp, what would you recommend as my next step? More strokes on the 8000? Back to the 4000 first and then the 8000? Other?
Any advice would be appreciated.