Awesome. :beer1:
Awesome. :beer1:
Shave 96 on the Sub Cero, still knocking out DFS,
Testament to great honing, stropping and shaving technique. Keep it up Steve.
Shave 100 with the Filly 14 Sub Cero this morning, the edge is still performing well. No pastes or abrasives, maintenance tools are a Tony Miller linen and a 3-piece Kanoyama. Here are some things that I’ve noted during this ‘experiment’.
- The edge hasn’t degraded much since shave 35-40.
- Soap makes a difference in shave quality with a high-mileage edge.
- The Sub Cero is holding up considerably better than the Cape 1000 and the Filly 14 Doble Temple, both normally tempered razors.
- Good stropping makes a difference. I feel like that I have improved mine even though I’ve been stropping for almost 10 years.
In early March, I visited Alex Gilmore and had the use of the excellent 325x microscope that he uses. When I looked at my stropped edges, it was clear that the heel was not stropped as well as the rest of the edge, maybe out at the toe too. The edge that I was looking at smiled a little and we all know most straight razors aren’t, but a strop is pretty flat side to side. After thinking about what I was seeing, I decided to slow down, watch the razor on the strop, and make sure that all the edge was being stropped equally well. That required a little change in technique, but again, mostly just paying attention rather than swiping away and assuming that all of a smiling edge was equally stropped.
Going forward, I am probably going to add 10 linen and canvas to the 35 suede and 65 leather. Adding the linen seems to help the edge stay stable. That’s about the only thing that I’ll do differently, and I was already adding 20 linen once a week.
Here’s a little background for those that are interested.
I honed the razor on May 24th, 2019 with 1 layer of 1 mil Kapton. The steel is very hard. It’s made ~250-300 passes across my face (2 pass shaves and a touchup), 10,000+ passes across suede and leather, and probably 200+ across canvas/linen.
The Sub Cero was a test that I never really intended to do. I wondered how long an edge would last with only stropping, and the Filly 14 DT and Cape 1000 both averaged 65 shaves, 63 for the Cape and 67 for the Filly, which I pushed a bit longer. I stopped the test for those when the razor began pulling/tugging and the shave was no longer fun, but you could certainly get a decent shave with either of them even with the tugging. When I bought the Sub Cero from Stefan, I started thinking about some forum comments that the Sub Cero and Novodur branding were just marketing gimmicks. I knew from honing the Sub Cero that the steel in this razor was very hard, so I decided to find out if the selling point of ice-hardened steel was just marketing. Apparently it isn’t.
Alfredo got ~130 shaves from a TI (also hard steel), and Iwasaki claimed that a barber got 1000 shaves from a razor using linen and leather, though the ‘linen’ was probably jute, cotton canvas, or hemp and not flax linen. Victor (Bluesman7) is over 100 on one of his. I began using Alfredo’s regimen of 35 suede and 65 leather, then added linen as I felt was beneficial. What I did/am doing is consistent with another maintenance thread here on SRP.
And I have no idea how many more shaves that edge has in it! Lol, it has surprised me.
I do 40 linen...100 leather...when I strop before each shave...but not keeping a record of shaves.
Shave #109 today with the Sub Cero, today marks a milestone though, the edge is one year old. I honed it on May 24th 2019 according to my honing log, on a favorite hard jnat that does really well with hard, fine grained steel. It’s still shaving smoothly, no tugging of any sort, though the shave is not quite as smooth and close as it was 100 shaves ago. The edge is still delivering a DFS though, and has been remarkably stable since shave 35-40 or so. No pastes or abrasives, all the maintenance is with a 3-piece Kanoyama and a Tony Miller flax linen.
Tip of the hat to Stefan!
Shave 115 today with the Sub Cero. It seemed to tug just a little but I had 30h growth and minimal prep and it’s done that before under similar conditions. Alfredo got 133-134 from a vintage TI so I’m closing in and hope that the edge keeps going for a little while longer. I gave it a careful stropping after today’s shave.
Attachment 321170
While I often exceed 100 shaves between hitting the stones, I do believe a bit of luck is involved. Something as simple as a stray piece of dirt on your strop can easily cause damage. I have had some edges need to go to the hones at around 50 shaves, same steel, same temper, same grind, same shaver.
Below, I have attached a review of the razor. I shaved with one blade for 8 months . Shave every other day. This is about 120 times. And I could shave for a long time. But since I have a lot of razors in my collection, I wanted to shave with others. So the experiment was suspended
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Bc4...S&index=3&t=0s
Shave #120 and still rockin’
Linen is often overlooked for maintaining an edge and use by most to clean a bevel without much thought or effort to its polishing ability. But it is where the micro abrasives are on good flax linen.
For maintenance I use Kanoyama strops, I too like the suede, but lately have been doing more on linen. I clean the razor well after shaving with a damp microfiber and dry microfiber to keep the linen clean and dry.
I use firehose between stones during honing and before the final laps on a finish stone. The Firehose is impressive for aligning the edge, but may be too much for daily use, so I use Kanoyama linen, suede, and finish leather. Firehose is so aggressive it leaves its own fine stria, Kanoyama linen will polish just a 1/3 of the bevel from the edge.
Clean linen and leather make a huge difference, I wipe mine daily before use with a clean, damp microfiber.
Think about it, I get razors in, that have random scratches and chips across the length of the bevels. A razor touches your face and your strop. What do you think is scratching the bevels and blunting the edge?
It’s all about stropping… and quality steel.
Shave 125 this morning, and it still has a better edge than the Cape and Doble Temple did when I stopped with them. I also checked the edge with a loupe, and it looks surprisingly good; a couple of short linear shiny spots and that’s about it really. This razor impresses me.
I’ve been testing fabric components to see if I could see an improvement/difference, I figure that any effect will be easier to tell with an edge with this much wear and tear on it. I’ve been doubling up to 40 linen/fabric after every shave now. So far fire hose linen neither improved nor set the edge back, Tony Miller linen seems to have helped, so after today’s shave I again hit the TM linen for 40 before suede and cordovan.
Shave 130 today, the edge is if anything noticeably better over the last 2-3 shaves. The Latvian linen and roo seem to be helping. Both are very thin and flexible, so tip of the hat to Aaron (ScoutHikerDad) and Mike (outback) for the suggestion of thin, flexible strops. The only other change has been going back to Santa Maria Novella shaving cream, which I used a lot early on in this test, and is just one of the very best SR soaps that there is. IMO. Again, no tugging. Post shave strooping was again 40 Latvian linen and 80 roo.
Attachment 321920
Roo strop and Latvian linen showing thickness.
Shave #133 this morning and the edge is good, and equals the number Alfredo got from his TI, so his result is not a fluke. I had previously posted that the edge is actually improving a bit over #125-127. I did some things differently, mostly to test the efficacy of fabrics and strops on an edge that appeared to be declining. Most likely the increased smoothness/performance is due to simply doubling the fabric from 20 to 40 each shave. I did switch to Latvian linen and a roo strop to see if more flexible products made a difference, Aaron and Mike are advocates of thin strops I believe.. Maybe, but the conventional wisdom is that the type of fabric and leather don’t make that much difference. There’s something going on, again, likely just increased linen.
I thought about stopping around #128, the edge didn’t seem to have much left in it and just flogging a few more shaves from it to exceed Alfredo’s number seemed like a ‘little’ thing to do with little relevance to maintaining an edge for many shaves. But I got a PM from Alfredo that simply said ‘Keep it going’, so that’s what I’m going to do. Thank you Alfredo!
Post shave stropping, 40 Latvian linen and 80 roo. The razor is amazing.
Shave #135, what can you say except Fillys rule! I had a little extra growth this morning and could tell it WTG, but ATG was normal. The edge seems to be showing a bit more wear and tear under the loupe, but it doesn’t seem to be affecting the shave, which is still DFS. It isn’t a fresh edge of course, but it’s still delivering a perfectly good shaving experience.
Post shave, back to 40 Kanoyama canvas followed by 35 Kanoyama suede and 75 Kanoyama cordovan. Let’s see if I can tell a difference next shave.
Shave #140 on this fine Sunday morning - it won’t stay fine though, heat index of 105F/40C or so is expected. There was a little resistance (but no tugging) on the first pass on 28 hours of beard, the second ATG pass felt normal and the shave was excellent. The Latvian linen and roo seem to be doing well. Post shave steopping was 40 Latvian linen and 100 roo.
That would be something. I don’t think that it will make it, but the latest stropping materials seem to be getting a little more smooth back in the edge. Iwasaki said that a barber got 1000 shaves from an edge with only linen and leather, but maybe that’s one of his tamehagane razors, that steel is known to respond very well to stropping.
Shave #145, the edge is still quite good. I’m a dozen beyond what Alfredo did with his vintage TI, but I am also using fabric/linen where he did not, he used Kanoyama suede and cordovan only.
This isn’t really surprising, Iwasaki said in his book chapter for barbers that use of linen would make an edge last longer than leather only, and could bring back an edge that was falling off. That’s exactly what I’ve experienced. It will be interesting to see how much further it will go, but I can tell you that the edge is seems stable and its shaving very well after adding the Latvian linen each shave.
I’ve used the Latvian linen with both roo and Kanoyama cordovan, and based on limited use, cannot tell a difference between the roo and cordovan. I can tell a difference between the Latvian linen and the Kanoyama canvas, with the linen doing better, again based on limited use.
Shave 153 today. and I’m making an executive decision to call it done. The edge still shaves well enough, but it’s lost enough closeness and smoothness to be close to the point where I ended my other edge longevity tests. I gave it a few extra shaves just the be sure, and a Filly 14 can shave better than this one is shaving. Still, quite the run and a darned impressive piece of steel! Tip of the hat to Stefan!
That was most impressive, Steve. Thanks for taking one for the team, and sharing with us.
Hey, Steve.
Is the bevel convexed.?
Hi Mike,
No not that I can see with a loupe, the bevel looks flat. A lot of the original kasumi from the jnat appears to be there.too. What’s taken the beating is the cutting edge, the actual apex of the bevels, It’s just worn down. It looks pretty bad, but it shaves better than the edge looks!
This is what got me interested in straight razors to start with. There was a gent who was looking for a razor after he chipped his puma that he had been using for 25 years or so.
Got 50+ shaves each off a bengall and a puma. Both were still shaving well, but had accumulated a lot of other razors that I wanted to try.
Well done for sticking at it.