Thread: Is my razor dull or too sharp?????

My wife gave me a Dovo Bergischer Lowe for Christmas. It was professionally honed by SRD and replaced my 1/4 grind Hart razor as my daily shaver. I have a thick beard and do a three pass shave five days a week. After a couple of weeks, I started getting a slight tug on the hairs after not shaving for a few days. I did 20 passes on the Crox with no improvement. I then went to 50 passes on the Crox and it seemed a lil worse. I then went to 20 passes on diamond paste then 50 on Crox. Now it feels like it catches and pulls every hair out instead of cutting it. After the first pass and getting rid of the longer hairs, the rest of the passes are great. What am I doing wrong?

When these things happen to me (often) , I've learned not to blame myself. It's always the razor!
Some razors like the paste and leather, others like the stone.
If the pasted strop doesn't work, use a nice little Barber Hone. But don't strop afterwards. Just shave off the hone.
Remember. The fault never lies with you!

You said nothing about your daily maintenance of the razor. Were you stropping it on leather after shaves? Nearly 100 passes on abrasive strops will have a detrimental effect. It sounds like it needs to be re-honed. It certainly isn't too sharp.

My daily routine is 20 on linen and 60 on leather.

I do more than that, sticking with leather, but that's me. I still say a re-honing is probably in order.

Question: After all of those subsequent passes on the treated strop, what did you do to check your edge to determine whether or not your edge was properly stropped?

Based on your OP it sounds as though you were getting good shaves, and then the edge began to deteriorate. It could be that the abrasives have essentially over-honed your edge to the point that it is over-thin and brittle, or, that you have under-stropped the razor and the edge is not yet returned to it's original keeness. Only the thumb pad can tell.

What a shame. I will have to rehone after two months.

Before hitting the hone try a 100 laps on your linen and 200 on your leather.

Hey, Ramos.

That's alotta strokes on abrasive pastes. You mention a thick beard. There's one member here whose bear just devours edges. Funds were short for stones - and he was new enough that stones weren't the best solution at that point. What kept his edges shaving was once a wk, he would take 2 sheets of newsprint, place them over a hard, flat, smooth surface, such as a hone, a pc of plate glass or polished marble/granite tile. 70 strokes on the newsprint, then 60 linen, 1-200 leather, and you're back in business. Without the linen/leather follow-up, it will be quite harsh. The good part of this process is that unlike your pasted strop, it doesn't round the bevel, but keeps it quite flat. It lacks the 'cool' factor, but is quite effective.

Good info here.

Way too many strokes on the pastes. I normally try to refresh a razor with 4-7 strokes on the paste or sprays and then a regular stropping. You may want to go back to a 8K or 4K for a refresh at this point or just rehone it from the 4K.

Originally Posted by pinklather

Hey, Ramos.

That's alotta strokes on abrasive pastes. You mention a thick beard. There's one member here whose bear just devours edges. Funds were short for stones - and he was new enough that stones weren't the best solution at that point. What kept his edges shaving was once a wk, he would take 2 sheets of newsprint, place them over a hard, flat, smooth surface, such as a hone, a pc of plate glass or polished marble/granite tile. 70 strokes on the newsprint, then 60 linen, 1-200 leather, and you're back in business. Without the linen/leather follow-up, it will be quite harsh. The good part of this process is that unlike your pasted strop, it doesn't round the bevel, but keeps it quite flat. It lacks the 'cool' factor, but is quite effective.