Thread: Longevity

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Sort of a form of insanity I guess.

Or attempt to justify having all those finishers!

I'm about 14 shaved in to the same razor right now with nothing but a beat up strop with maybe 8 inches of useful surface. However, I do have a piece of balsa wood and some crox powder because I doubt I'm going to make it too much longer with this.

I found the Stropping Is King thread today and have it bookmarked for the next time I have opportunity to do some reading.

I have two other razors I could be using BUT I do not want to use them until I'm confident in my stropping technique because they are family heirloom razors (see my sig). Right now I'm using a Geneva Genco to shave and this morning was the first time I felt pulling that it didn't go away when I adjusted my angle. All of them were professionally honed by Ron/Utopian here. I have a thick beard with wire-like whiskers, but I didn't have to use ANY pressure to shave that first shave.

I do have a 3-line swaty for touch ups when the time comes, but I'd certainly hope it'll last longer between honings. Once I get confident in my technique, then I'll be rotating through (and incorporating the Sterling and J. Wosty once I get them restored). But for now I'm just trying to figure out how to judge/evaluate my stropping.

Thanks guys,

On my first razor I got around 4 months before I sent it off to get honed at SRD that was probably around 2 to three shaves a week. I think I pushed it a little far but I was still getting BBS shaves just some extra razor burn as well. I hope this helps you judge how long you should last, I also forgot to say strop 20 times cloth 50 times leather before each shave and 10 on cloth after to make sure it was dry. I have read that bad form in stroping will prematurely dull a blade, this might be a possibility.

I know this is against the normal pratice here but I am in the camp of using some pressure while stropping. What I do is use enough pressure on the razor to feel a nice even draw on both my pressed wool strop (canvas/linen) and the same on the leather strop (cow hide for me). I also keep my strops very taught with very little deflection. I tried the no pressure but found that it didn't keep my razors sharp for long so once I felt the pulling that you are talking about Jim I tried using the pressure and found that brought it back to a nice shave so have been doing that since.

Originally Posted by Castel33

I know this is against the normal pratice here but I am in the camp of using some pressure while stropping. What I do is use enough pressure on the razor to feel a nice even draw on both my pressed wool strop (canvas/linen) and the same on the leather strop (cow hide for me). I also keep my strops very taught with very little deflection. I tried the no pressure but found that it didn't keep my razors sharp for long so once I felt the pulling that you are talking about Jim I tried using the pressure and found that brought it back to a nice shave so have been doing that since.

I think that's where I'm at too. I've been using ULTRA light pressure..."the weight of the blade" so much so that the hollow ground Genco does not press the strop into the table when laid flat. (it has a bit of a rise in it from years of neglect in a shoe box before I found it) I'm beginning to believe this is too light of pressure. It might do SOMETHING, but probably very little. I'm going to play around with my stropping tonight and see what happens.

You'll have to remember that some dudes are honing, not refreshing on strops, but honing their edges on a near-weekly cycle. Early in my "career" shaving with an open razor I found the edge decayed to unsatifactory shaving action and results from about 3-4 weeks. I recently used a Geneva up to 3 weeks. Of course, it lasted well over a month, I'm talking about razor days (like dog days), how many times it was used, before I detected enough of a difference in closeness on the more aggressive directions. Really, those Genevas are nice 'n hard. From the beginning I was about a 3-weeker, still am with every blade I've tried. Pleased to say the Geneva came out in very high standing. My G-d it's good to be an American!

Get yourself a "trash" blade, best something of similar grind and width, and use that until you're in the "zone" before touching your real shaver to the stone. If you're not well practiced at the honing part of this you'll want to refresh your motor muscle memory before you refresh your edges.

When I've used a paddle strop, I've found that "no pressure" tends to achieve very little. Now when I use the paddle strop I do use pressure, but pressure is applied more to the pulling and pushing action than downward on the blade itself. I've gotten much better results with that and no problems. I've also found that paddle stropping seems to require many more laps than would be required with a hanging strop. It's also more precise. I usually do 30 laps on a hanging linen strop but move to the paddle, smooth leather, and do at least 100 laps on that.

After reading partway through the "Stropping is King" thread, which is really more of a tome that reads something like the Ilead, and watching Hi_Bud's vid and reading the wiki again I took my Genco to my Shumate strop (which is textured unlike any other I've seen online) and used a LOT more pressure (*note: not a lot of pressure...just a lot more than I'd been using) and changed the orientation of my body to the strop and I got a much improved shave this morning (probably 50 laps but I didn't keep track as I was constantly adjusting things). I'm hoping to strop tomorrow like I stropped toward the end of the session this morning and improve the blade even further.

I can't believe there are guys that only make it 10 shaves between honing/pasted strops. If I'd have known that coming in it might have put me off. I can't imagine how razors have lasted hundreds of years if they really had to be honed that often. I mean, I know honing only takes of small amounts off metal, but 45-50 honing sessions a year over the course of a guy's lifetime would leave little to be passed down to sons, grandsons, great grandsons. There's got to be something of a lost art to stropping to make the blade last longer than what some of the guys in "Stropping is King" were experiencing. Hopefully I can achieve the longevity of edge some of the "masters" have obtained. I think I'd be happy making it 2-3mos between swipes on the Swaty.

Thanks for sharing your experiences guys. I'm making progress because of your input.

Heh heh heh. Ahhhhh... sometimes we are "welcomed to the club" in stages.. Do you have a microscope? During my foray into honing I was constantly monitoring the images of the blade, along the entire length. Chipped eBetray specials and all that. It was fun and educational. Part of what I learned was that removing a relatively small amount of metal with the oh-so-bad 220 Norton was slow going.. this carbon razor steel is hard and takes forever! When will these chips finally disappear? The other thing I learned was that, if I left a tiny microchip on the edge (which I often did because I didn't want to face the fear of a truly perfected (for whatever grit level) edge and have that looming over me on every stroke) I would notice that the metal removed with over a hundred strokes was increasingly miniscule. When you're talking a finisher, or the next down the line (for me a Norton 8,000) that a hell of a lot of distance to travel on a hone to remove any noteworthy width of the blade. These things outlast our lifespans when treated right without disasterous accidents.

Less than 20 light strokes on the finisher, for me, brings it right back. At that point it's stropping on a latigo or smooth paddle to tame the edge for the first shave. Some guys are more interested in preserving "perfection" (subjective) of their edges and refresh their edges every week, not out of necessity, but as a lifestyle choice.

Bear down hard on your vegetables with a kitchen knife. Notice how the unaligned edge becomes impacted faster and faster... soon you'll be squashing it down with more force, increasing wear on the metal and reducing its lifespan disproportionate to the work accomplished.. But if you resharpen on a regular basis, as soon as it needs cleaning of the edge, you will see that when it functions as designed the edge cuts as intended, with no excess pressure required. Frequent sharpening prevents excessive wear on the blade, increasing its longevity.