Thread: Fire Ash II

I have recently recreated my fire ash experiments. This time, strangely, they seem to be working well. Really, really, well. The traditional practice of applying this powdery substance to the linen of a strop is rarely documented but I gave it another try.

It seemed, on the first razor I tried, to sharpen the razor. After five shaving attempts it suddenly felt sharper. That was 20 passes per shave, or 100 passes total. I tried the process on the second, third, fourth, and even fifth razors in my collection. They began shaving better almost immediately.

At this point the first razor started feeling a little overhoned, so I slowed down on that one. I'm at the point where I only refresh them about once a week, on linen only, but am unclear on a schedule.

I concluded two things immediately. If the fire ash is a grit of some sort, its very, very, very high, like maybe .01???. And two, the last failure was due to my honing inabilities. Some two years ago when I started the last experiment my honing ability was far less then it is today. The "grit" was only able to work on a very, very sharp razor already.

Now, in order to determine if it was a grit at all I used two indicators. The first was whether the linen started getting dark, or blacker. It did seem to get blacker after a 100 or so passes, more so after 200. After the last reapplication I havent' seen evidence of blackening yet, but I've slowed down because I found that about 60-100 passes smoothed out the other razors and this smoothing was good enough for me. I already honed the things up shaving sharp. You know what I mean? The second was direct observation under a microscope. There is absolutely no indication of any grit action at all. This is up to 80x. I can't see anything to indicate the edge is getting any action at all.

A little baffled at this point but I can say that my razors are feeling "smoother" and perhaps, just perhaps I'm sensing they are a little sharper. But not much. But the smoother feeling is kinda nice. I'm actually shaving more against the grain then I've ever wanted to because it glides rather effortlessly against the grain. I've never honed quite that well before.

So at this point I'm wondering if the ash is helping to warm the blade better while stropping on linen, or whether its just all in my imagination. But anyway I like the way they feel. So I thought I'd share . . . oh and feel free to just call me a quack, it won't hurt my feelings.