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Damnit, I messed up my edge.

Slash McCoy

I freehand dog rockets
Pretty much. The good news is that I’m sure it’ll still shave well tomorrow.

I still can’t understand how such a fine grained diamond can change the edge characteristics so quickly. I’ll have to get a microscope to see what’s happening.
Don't count on that happening all the time with all razors. The safe bet is still to go with the whole progression. Very likely you end up with an edge that has (relatively) deep stria and a very smooth edge in between.
 
Don't count on that happening all the time with all razors. The safe bet is still to go with the whole progression. Very likely you end up with an edge that has (relatively) deep stria and a very smooth edge in between.
A hybrid edge. I’m liking the hybrid edges ATM.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
A hybrid edge. I’m liking the hybrid edges ATM.
I'm also happy with mine, although this week I am working my way through my English M7DS. Next week it's back to the hybrids.

The English M7DS has maxed out Method edges. They are great to shave with but I can only get two passes per shave with nothing else left to shave. With the hybrids I can get the same with three passes.

Twelve hours now after this morning's two-pass English M7DS shave and my face is at a DFS finish. At least that means I'll have something to shave tomorrow morning.
 
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Slash McCoy

I freehand dog rockets
I'm also happy with mine, although this week I am working my way through my English M7DS. Next week it's back to the hybrids.

The English M7DS has maxed out Method edges. They are great to shave with but I can only get two passes per shave with nothing else left to shave. With the hybrids I can get the same with three passes.

Twelve hours now after this morning's two-pass English M7DS shave and my face is at a DFS finish. At least that means I'll have something to shave tomorrow morning.
It sounds like you are frustrated by not being able to shave for hours every day. You should move to Crete or Sicily. Then you could shave your girlfriends, too.
 
Last week I tried @Tomo idea with the hybrid edge.

I had taken a razor from bevel to finish on a black ark. Halfway through finishing on the ark, I "cheated" and did a quick light hone on .1u balsa.

I shaved and found that it worked, actually. Bumped up the sharpness. Interesting. But with an ark I suspect all I did was create a Method edge.

Will a light touch of balsa improve an edge without erasing the hazy comfy finish of a coti or jnat?

In other words, can we retain a kasumi finish and also enjoy a balsa edge?

I don't know. I'm curious.
 
Last week I tried @Tomo idea with the hybrid edge.

I had taken a razor from bevel to finish on a black ark. Halfway through finishing on the ark, I "cheated" and did a quick light hone on .1u balsa.

I shaved and found that it worked, actually. Bumped up the sharpness. Interesting. But with an ark I suspect all I did was create a Method edge.

Will a light touch of balsa improve an edge without erasing the hazy comfy finish of a coti or jnat?

In other words, can we retain a kasumi finish and also enjoy a balsa edge?

I don't know. I'm curious.
Only one way to find out. In my experience the answer is yes. As long as you don’t do too many balsa laps. Even if you do overdue it, you still edge up with a good sharp edge.
 
That is true, getting a Method edge is certainly not a bad thing.

But then why go to the time and trouble of naturals when you're going to overwrite the natural finish and end up with a Method edge. If I'm going to that, they why not just use the easier and faster Naniwa 12 before going balsa.

But I will try it. I cannot get really sharp edges from my sole coticule, so maybe that stone in particular needs a bit of balsa help.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if that explains the historical popularity of pasted strops. Especially in europe, it seemed that pasted strops were universally used.

I always thought it was weird. Why bother with pasted strops when you have to return to the stones eventually anyway.

But maybe what they were really doing was improving on a crappy stone finish. They didn't have high grit synthetic hones back then. Maybe their 6k grit basic honing stones, their cutlery sharpening stones, is all they had. So they had to use paste to move up to shaving sharp. Hmmm.

I note that the arrival of wonderful modern finishing stones like the Nani 12 is about the same time as the decrease in use in Crox paste and the rest.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
That is true, getting a Method edge is certainly not a bad thing.

But then why go to the time and trouble of naturals when you're going to overwrite the natural finish and end up with a Method edge. If I'm going to that, they why not just use the easier and faster Naniwa 12 before going balsa.

But I will try it. I cannot get really sharp edges from my sole coticule, so maybe that stone in particular needs a bit of balsa help.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if that explains the historical popularity of pasted strops. Especially in europe, it seemed that pasted strops were universally used.

I always thought it was weird. Why bother with pasted strops when you have to return to the stones eventually anyway.

But maybe what they were really doing was improving on a crappy stone finish. They didn't have high grit synthetic hones back then. Maybe their 6k grit basic honing stones, their cutlery sharpening stones, is all they had. So they had to use paste to move up to shaving sharp. Hmmm.

I note that the arrival of wonderful modern finishing stones like the Nani 12 is about the same time as the decrease in use in Crox paste and the rest.
I think what the hybrid method is doing is trying to keep the natural stone finish on the bevel yet producing a Method edge at the edge. The bevel finish then provides a "smoother" feel against the skin while the Method edge does the cutting.
 

Slash McCoy

I freehand dog rockets
That is true, getting a Method edge is certainly not a bad thing.

But then why go to the time and trouble of naturals when you're going to overwrite the natural finish and end up with a Method edge. If I'm going to that, they why not just use the easier and faster Naniwa 12 before going balsa.

But I will try it. I cannot get really sharp edges from my sole coticule, so maybe that stone in particular needs a bit of balsa help.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I wonder if that explains the historical popularity of pasted strops. Especially in europe, it seemed that pasted strops were universally used.

I always thought it was weird. Why bother with pasted strops when you have to return to the stones eventually anyway.

But maybe what they were really doing was improving on a crappy stone finish. They didn't have high grit synthetic hones back then. Maybe their 6k grit basic honing stones, their cutlery sharpening stones, is all they had. So they had to use paste to move up to shaving sharp. Hmmm.

I note that the arrival of wonderful modern finishing stones like the Nani 12 is about the same time as the decrease in use in Crox paste and the rest.

Well, first of all your coticule edge that you are unhappy with is probably what would have passed for a very good edge 40 years ago. You are spoiled. I am, too. I have owned a coticule and I still own a Jnat and they neither one ever made me very happy. But either one would have satisfied me back in the day.

As for taking the time to create a coti finish and then hitting the balsa, well there are reasons one might do that. For one, a coti can function as a one man band, so to speak, taking the razor from bevel to sorta finish with just the one stone. If you can handle the jump from coticule to .5u diamond on balsa, I could see doing it that way. However I do in fact prefer the Naniwa progression or lapping film, before the balsa for the same reasons. It is fast and consistent as long as the Naniwas are freshly lapped or the film isn't worn out. I particularly like film because it is always going to be as flat as the plate it rests on. Perfect match for the balsa.

But deliberately attempting to combine the best characteristics of a natural and the balsa seems illogical to me. I would be the last to try it. If someone else finds that it works better for him than anything else, okay, that's cool. But I would probably wonder if he is comparing the resulting edge with a less than optimum synthetic edge, but assuming that his synth edge is as good as it gets. I could certainly be wrong. All I know is that what I do makes sense and gives ME the best edge I have ever shaved with.

If the goal is to have a natural edge that feels like a natural edge but is sharper than a natural edge, to me the obvious path is ultra hard, slow slurrying Jnats whose slurry breaks down super fine. I have shaved with Jnat edges that were considerably sharper than a 12k Naniwa edge. Not as sharp as a full house balsa edge, but still very good. This requires a knowledgeable and skilled honer and a very very good base stone and naguras though. I am first to admit that I can't do it and I can't afford the rocks to do it with and I don't have the time to do it. Or finding a translucent super hard ark and lapping it on a progression of lapping films for a crazy fine finish on the ark, and using that after a more normally burnished trans or black ark. I am actually surprised that nobody seems to really be putting that much heart and soul into finishing with these rocks. Now me, no way would I ever bother simply because when you burnish a piece of almost pure quartz that finely, you will need thousands of laps on it to bring the steel to it's ultimate sharpness level. And I suspect that what you would end up with, would feel and look almost exactly like a perfectly executed .5u or .25u diamond on balsa edge or a .3u lapping film edge.

I think one thing that most of us have in common is that we love this thing of ours so passionately that we tend to overthink, overdo, overspend, and overagonize a lot. I find my thoughts sometimes drifting toward great new ideas, but I have learned to ask myself whether I really expect the results to be better than what I already get or not, and I save a lot of time and trouble by just sticking with the program. The temptation is there, I just remember all the times when I went down another path and found it was a dead end.
 
Well, the drive to innovation is sometimes productive and sometimes not.

Innovation created The Method, which is good. But then our monkey brains want to fiddle with it.

Much like my friends who spent years perfecting their barbeque sauce. They finally nailed it. Once a year they made bulk, put it in dozens of pretty little jars, gifted it to all their friends. It was really good.

Years later they were having dinner at a friend's house and they said "oh how nice, you're serving our house bbq sauce. We forgot we gave you a bottle."

The host said "no, I don't think this is yours"

the guest said "no, this is definitely ours. I recognize it. It's perfect."

The host went into the kitchen and came out with what he had used. It was a jar of store bought "Bull's Eye Original BBQ Sauce."

After years of hard work, my friends had only succeeded in recreating a store brand.
 
@Tomo Do you have a good source for acrylic blocks? Last time I looked, they were rather expensive.
I would give you the link but my computer is going bananas ever since I spilled an old fashioned on it. I think it is still drunk on about 3oz of Old Overholt. Look for the thread named "How to Use a Pasted Balsa Strop" or something like that. You don't need to have the edges machined. 3M spray adhesive works fine. Do NOT use double sided tape! It is too compressible. Glue it, Let it sit overnight. Turn it upside down on a flat surface and the weight of the acrylic should be clamp enough. Then lap it. Then paste it. Then do two more because you need .5u, .25u, and .1u. Read the balsa thread cause I left a lot of stuff out rather than turn this post into a booklength manuscript.

Buy your balsa in 3" wide, 1/4" thick, 36" long plank. Cut it into three pieces. It will be a long time before you have to remove and replace it. You can lap it about a dozen times before it starts to get thin. Then just peel it off and use acetone to clean up the old glue. I usually lap mine about every two months. You basically just lap it when it is loaded completely with swarf.

Read the thread. Get your head in the thread. The thread in your head. Then go ahead.
That last sentence really sums it up. I am not even going to touch my straight until I have done a lot of reading and ordered everything that I need.
 
@Tomo Do you have a good source for acrylic blocks? Last time I looked, they were rather expensive.
Sorry I took so long to reply. I got a quote from TAP Plastics. It is $17.41+$18.98 shipping for one 12X3X1. [$36.39 total]
If I order 4 [to have extra for balsa strips] the price is $69.64+$22.46 shipping. [$92.10 total]
 
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