Gold Dollar - first honing success and a tragedy.

[tomtom42]

Hi everybody,

today I found a GD No.66 I bought last year while searching something else.

When I bought it I had dremeld down the shoulders and tried to hone it - without much success.
So I decided to try again today.

I remember that I had tried to set a bevel with a coticule last year, but suspected that it was not really there.
Since it's a GD I did not feel a need to baby it and used the fine side of my cheap synthetic Zische combination stone (grit is FEPA 280, which is roughly equivalent to JIS 400-500 grit).

I didn't count laps but honed until I could feel a burr and repeated on the other side (used a sharpie to check if I covered the whole lenght of the blade).

After this the blade shaved arm hair ok , so I moved on to finer stones:
1. another synthetic - Zische Missarka (synthetic, grid FEPA 1000 ~ JIS 3000)
2. Coticule (first with slurry, then with tape and water)
3. chinese "12k" aka PHIG (first tape ans slurry, then tape and water)

Finally some stropping and the test shave:

very nice !!! Blade feels sharp but no way harsh, the GD has a nice hefty feel in hand

So I am happy shaving away ... and manage to bang the freshly honed blade against the mug I soaked my brush in
Further inspection shows a small area where the edge seems bent - right in the middle of the blade

So I have to start all over again - but this time I know I can do it!

br,
T°M

 

[Krodor]

Awesome!!! They are fun, no? Glad you like the ol' GD. I think it's one of those initiation rites of straight shaving to hone up a raw GD 66, use it, and realize that if you really wanted to, you could have pleasant shaves with that cheap thing for the rest of your life

 

[tomtom42]

Well, I managed to get a usable edge again - but this time I started with a 1k naniwa combi stone and then went to the coti and the chinese 12k.

shave was ok - so the whole thing turned out fine in the end

@ Krodor: yep, the GD is fun, BUT it needed a lot of steel removed in the first place - glad I haven't tried this without a "coarse" stone...

br,
T°M