Originally Posted by
daflorc
For instance, my first ever post, when I explained that I had a brand spanking new, "shave ready" dovo that gave me 2-3 decent shaves before starting to pull, and that 200 featherlight strokes on a 8,000 grit stone did nothing but polish the bevel and did nothing to increase the sharpness, it would be difficult to know exactly what the problem was for anybody wishing to give advice.
However,
When approached with this problem, the answers I got were this:
"Learn to shave first, and take your razor to get honed by someone who knows what they're doing"
"consult the wiki and watch the instructional video"
"(insert multiple links from wiki to answer question)"
"you're not stropping properly"
"you're honing wrong and dulling the edge, or putting too much pressure"
"Don't try to learn how to hone and shave at the same time"
"you're holding the razor at the wrong angle"
When I suggested that maybe dovo didn't do a great job honing, I got this:
"So, you think the guys that sharpen razors for a living didn't sharpen your razor correctly, right?"
and
"How did you get 2-3 good shaves if they didn't set the bevel?"
Now, i've been a woodworker since high school, spent several years doing chip carving as a hobby, and honing my knives on 1,000 and 2,000 grit stones to perfect result for my purpose, and i watched every instructional video on razors and read everything I could find about honing razors BEFORE ever asking questions on SRP. I bought a 3 inch wide finishing hone so I could ensure proper form and use a 2 handed, modified push stroke so i could keep the entire length of the blade on the hone and push it forward without x strokes and without taking the edge off the stone and without putting pressure on the blade.
When I explained this, I still got the same answers, many repeated, probably because some posters didnt read the entire thread.
..Well, As it turned out, dovo didnt adequately set the bevel, but somehow sharpened it to a weak (but sharp) edge, which wore out quickly, and once I did a simple pyramid the shaver worked fine, even better than when I got it.
Can you see how someone might feel when we encounter a problem and get those answers every time, because everyone assumes we're totally clueless?