My forum friend @rbscebu tantalized me without knowing it. First he mentioned that he had razors going all the way up to 70 HRC, and I wondered how that could be. I refrained from asking him, because I do not need more razor temptation. Finally he described what he was talking about, a Chinese Titan razor with obscure code markings, selected for this hardness. I was unable to resist.
Obtaining the razor was not without peril -- I had to venture onto Ali Express. My only experience with Ali Express was ordering some jewelry for my wife at Christmas. It never arrived. So I was not too pumped, but I tried anyway. I ordered the razor. Then realized, to my chagrin, that adding it to my cart, changing my shipping address to my new home, and pressing Buy before I checked every little detail, meant that I had ordered the razor to my old home address. Yikes.
I sent messages to the platform, and to the vendor, giving my new address. Things did not seem good. The vendor said they were shipping to my old address, and the platform gave me an update two days later, saying they had informed the vendor. Ugh. I hoped that the people at my old address would be charitable.
Finally I got a notice: the razor had arrived at the post office at my old address! I could go pick it up there! Imagine my excitement.
But when I checked my mail box, there it was. The 70HRC razor, in the flesh. They even included a strop.
So, OK, what have I got here? Putting it under the microscope was a shock, because I saw the dark surface that I like to see after I've been through all of the Method balsa strops. That should mean that the edge was seriously shave-ready. But I ran my finger across it, and it was not. Not even close.
So I put it on a 2K Shapton Glass stone, to see what was happening. What was happening was that whatever it had been through, it did not mean that this razor was honed. It meant that it was polished on the bevel, but did not have a proper apex, and the polish was in no way aligned with the razor's built-in sharpening guide.
The dark part is the very fine polish, not aligned with the built-in sharpening guide. The scratches below are from the SG2000.
This is not good. I'm going back to my coarsest razor honing stone, the SG500, and will post updates to this thread. I am excited about this razor; I did not expect it to not need work. Now comes the work. I will update this thread as I go.
Obtaining the razor was not without peril -- I had to venture onto Ali Express. My only experience with Ali Express was ordering some jewelry for my wife at Christmas. It never arrived. So I was not too pumped, but I tried anyway. I ordered the razor. Then realized, to my chagrin, that adding it to my cart, changing my shipping address to my new home, and pressing Buy before I checked every little detail, meant that I had ordered the razor to my old home address. Yikes.
I sent messages to the platform, and to the vendor, giving my new address. Things did not seem good. The vendor said they were shipping to my old address, and the platform gave me an update two days later, saying they had informed the vendor. Ugh. I hoped that the people at my old address would be charitable.
Finally I got a notice: the razor had arrived at the post office at my old address! I could go pick it up there! Imagine my excitement.
But when I checked my mail box, there it was. The 70HRC razor, in the flesh. They even included a strop.
So, OK, what have I got here? Putting it under the microscope was a shock, because I saw the dark surface that I like to see after I've been through all of the Method balsa strops. That should mean that the edge was seriously shave-ready. But I ran my finger across it, and it was not. Not even close.
So I put it on a 2K Shapton Glass stone, to see what was happening. What was happening was that whatever it had been through, it did not mean that this razor was honed. It meant that it was polished on the bevel, but did not have a proper apex, and the polish was in no way aligned with the razor's built-in sharpening guide.
The dark part is the very fine polish, not aligned with the built-in sharpening guide. The scratches below are from the SG2000.
This is not good. I'm going back to my coarsest razor honing stone, the SG500, and will post updates to this thread. I am excited about this razor; I did not expect it to not need work. Now comes the work. I will update this thread as I go.