Hurray! Thanks largely to this forum I just had my first great straight shave, but it's been a long journey.
First I got a Rolls Razor from a boot fair for £2.00. I enjoyed shaving with it but it just wasn't sharp enough, howevr much I honed and stropped it using its own case mechanism
Then I got a shavette to add a bit of variety to my OC DEs.
I liked the vicious and unforgiving Pakistani Maqsood shavette so much that I got a Coolcut 4 and temjeito very generously PIF'd me a Parker SR1 (thanks!).
Then I picked up a vintage Suprema straight in good condition at a flea market for £8.00 but, of course, it wasn't shave ready.
I'd read that the Rolls would shine if it was honed outside the box, so I thought I'd give it a go in a cheapo way, so I ordered some 3M polishing papers off eBay for £3.20.
Meanwhile, those shavettes were kicking my technique and confidence far up the learning curve with every shave, and when I returned to DE shaving it was at a new level.
The polishing papers arrived and I honed the Rolls blade with them in a haphazard kind of way and then stropped it like a lunatic, and it produced a fantastic result. The Rolls blade was now extremely smooth and very sharp.
This inspired me to try the same routine with the Suprema but I made a lot of mistakes and ended up with a rough dull blade (doh!)
The first big mistake I made was putting the paper on ceramic tiles which weren't completely flat (doh!).
The second, and thoroughly shameful, mistake was that I didn't examine the 1u paper closely enough to see that it's backing and abrasive side were the same colour and i accidentally mounted it on the tile upside down (doh!) then wondered why the Suprema blade felt like a can lid.
But then I posted about this in the Rolls thread and got some really good advice from Slash McCoy which worked brilliantly!
This time I worked through all 6 polishing papers from the coarsest to the finest, mounting them on a smaller mirror tile and lapping with each paper much more than seemed sensible until the blade was undercutting the water and felt like it was sticking to the paper.
I mounted the 1u paper the right way up (!) and finished up with it over wet paper, then stropped like crazy on newspaper.
The result was excellent
The fierce technique training from the shavettes and the great honing advice from Slash McCoy converged with my low-end all-paper sharpening solution, and tonight I had a great shave with the 1932 Suprema No.42 3/8 straight.
Thanks guys!
First I got a Rolls Razor from a boot fair for £2.00. I enjoyed shaving with it but it just wasn't sharp enough, howevr much I honed and stropped it using its own case mechanism
Then I got a shavette to add a bit of variety to my OC DEs.
I liked the vicious and unforgiving Pakistani Maqsood shavette so much that I got a Coolcut 4 and temjeito very generously PIF'd me a Parker SR1 (thanks!).
Then I picked up a vintage Suprema straight in good condition at a flea market for £8.00 but, of course, it wasn't shave ready.
I'd read that the Rolls would shine if it was honed outside the box, so I thought I'd give it a go in a cheapo way, so I ordered some 3M polishing papers off eBay for £3.20.
Meanwhile, those shavettes were kicking my technique and confidence far up the learning curve with every shave, and when I returned to DE shaving it was at a new level.
The polishing papers arrived and I honed the Rolls blade with them in a haphazard kind of way and then stropped it like a lunatic, and it produced a fantastic result. The Rolls blade was now extremely smooth and very sharp.
This inspired me to try the same routine with the Suprema but I made a lot of mistakes and ended up with a rough dull blade (doh!)
The first big mistake I made was putting the paper on ceramic tiles which weren't completely flat (doh!).
The second, and thoroughly shameful, mistake was that I didn't examine the 1u paper closely enough to see that it's backing and abrasive side were the same colour and i accidentally mounted it on the tile upside down (doh!) then wondered why the Suprema blade felt like a can lid.
But then I posted about this in the Rolls thread and got some really good advice from Slash McCoy which worked brilliantly!
This time I worked through all 6 polishing papers from the coarsest to the finest, mounting them on a smaller mirror tile and lapping with each paper much more than seemed sensible until the blade was undercutting the water and felt like it was sticking to the paper.
I mounted the 1u paper the right way up (!) and finished up with it over wet paper, then stropped like crazy on newspaper.
The result was excellent
The fierce technique training from the shavettes and the great honing advice from Slash McCoy converged with my low-end all-paper sharpening solution, and tonight I had a great shave with the 1932 Suprema No.42 3/8 straight.
Thanks guys!
