Thread: It was the best of shaves, it was irritatingest of shaves

I've got this razor I've been working on cleaning up.



It looked great in the pictures on the auction, maybe a couple smudges on the blade... But oh no, those weren't smudges.

Cell rot. And how.

I despaired that I'd thrown money down the toilet, but I sent Glen a PM and he just said 'HONE IT'. So I did. And... It looked like it was going to take an edge, but it was work because that pitting goes right down into the bevel and some of those pits are deeper than the median-line of the grind. It's a very thin blade. Meaning, if I honed to those pits, the pits became chips in the edge. The spots on the blade with that kind of pitting are large and wide. As you can see, there are a lot of pits in there.

It was really discouraging.

But today I slapped some tape on and honed it on the Norton. I honed it until it sang, knocking hairs off all the way. Then I honed it some more on my ChiNat, and holy crap was it sharp.

So sharp that I shaved a couple spots on my neck pretty comfortably.

Without having stropped it, or done any prep, or used anything on my face.

It felt fine at the time, I'm telling you.

But a few hours later and those spots on my face are pretty irritated.

On the other hand, the rest of my face, having shaved properly with that razor, is the smoothest its been since my face got hairy.

I guess I can consider the blade functional now.

Now to do the hard part and fix the scales. The rest of the blade is not currently fit to be seen...

Suggestions for improvement:

1. Strop it ! Something like 50 - 100 laps on leather should help.

2. Get some Cromium Oxide powder (0.5 micron) or paste, and make a pasted strop. That will give you a smoother edge than the ChiNat.

But if you could shave with it, your honing was OK. Congratulations!

- - - Charles

Originally Posted by cpcohen1945

Suggestions for improvement:

1. Strop it ! Something like 50 - 100 laps on leather should help.

2. Get some Cromium Oxide powder (0.5 micron) or paste, and make a pasted strop. That will give you a smoother edge than the ChiNat.

But if you could shave with it, your honing was OK. Congratulations!

I should've been clearer, I stropped the living hell out of it before I shaved-shaved with it. Also, I did actual face prep like using lather.

Getting a pasted strop is still in the cards, but I've just been slow to do it since I've got a local buddy who has several very nice pasted strops.