ot home this afternoon from work and my green paste, the 0.5 chromium oxide, from handamerican had arrived. so, it was kinda overcast and i was wanting to go to a movie with the wife, but i was actually wanting to shave more so.
i have a strop on a board, so i loaded up half of it with the paste as per the website instructions. stropped like 50 times, then linen for like 10 and the regular leather strop (hanging) for like 20. the TI this morning had pulled a bit but not too bad. well, the shave was smooth. mind you, not as sharp as the feather, but as sharp as any straight i had used, well maybe not as sharp as lynn honed up my bismarck.
so, if i really want to try to mimic a feather, could i use another paste on the other half of the strop that i did not treat (the board strop). i could strop on the green paste and then wash off the razor, let it dry with a towel and air dry for like 10 minutes, and then hit a finer paste. i think chris suggested the TI paste but to use it on my linen strop after the green paste, and then his the regular strop.
delivered, a 4 oz bottle was like $16.30. this bottle will last me years. next time, id use maybe 6 to 10 small dots like the website shows and it would retreat the area that took like 15 to 20 dots this time. even then, using 20 dots, i bet i have over 300 applications? i dont know if you could hone up more than one razor at a time, but if not, gosh this stuff will last. if handamerican had a finer paste like this, id get that too. this stuff was easy to use, and clean up. sometimes, i felt like the edge was not hitting the strop so a little pressure was used, and you could hear more of a cutting sound. anyway, this really tightend up the razor.
i think howard said somewhere today that it is easy to keep a sharp blade sharp than to sharpen a blade. i dont think it would hurt for me to hit the green paste after 10 to 15 shaves.
tonight i also touched up with a feather straight. first shave entirely with a straight razor and no touch up with a DE that i would feel comfortable going to work or church with.
sam