I just received a package from Revisor, and Sabine was kind enough to include a copy of a local newspaper article. I think this will be of interest to the group..
Interesting correspondence from Revisor
- Thread starter Loner16
- Start date
I wonder if "sharpen" here, ought to be translated as "grind." Since what is being described is obviously the grinding process, also note that they differentiated between that and honing, later on in the article.
Thanks for sharing, always great to read about this stuff!
Thanks for sharing, always great to read about this stuff!
In the article he says at the bottom he has used his stainless steel razor for 35 years without honing, and he only strops 30 laps, once a week.
Amazing. He obviously knows maintenance.
Or his idea of shave ready is different from most B&B members. It makes me wonder how sharp straight razors typically were back in the day, and whether the kind of edge people use today is far sharper than was traditionally considered necessary or desirable.
I’ve never seen anybody here say they strop just once a week, let alone doing nothing beyond a weekly strop for decades.
Pasted strop maybe?
I have a Sistrum that I bought NOS, which would have been his work, from the early 70s probably. It had a very nice edge by any standard. Lookin at it under magnification I suspect it was probably finished on a pasted strop. Probably black or red iron oxide paste if I had to guess, those were common in Solingen.
I wondet if his weekly stropping might be on a charged strop. Who knows? A single pass DFS level shave won't have a lot of impact on an edge.
To be honest, I would take him at his word. Proper use of a strop on a regular basis will maintain an edge in perpetuity. I have a stainless J.A. Henkels Friodur that was originally honed by me from bevel set to finish years ago. Every time I pick it up for a shave I wonder to myself if "this will be the time" for another honing or touch up.
And so far, every time, I put it back in its case after shave and strop and it proves itself fresh and ready for the next shave. All it has seen after the stones years ago is a palm strop followed by clean leather.
Sometimes I think that people over think and over do straight razor shaving/honing.
And so far, every time, I put it back in its case after shave and strop and it proves itself fresh and ready for the next shave. All it has seen after the stones years ago is a palm strop followed by clean leather.
Sometimes I think that people over think and over do straight razor shaving/honing.
Are we doing it wrong? We do more stoning than they did in the Old Testament.
Well, the man did work at his craft for decades, and it was production work, so how many man hours does he have in muscle memory? Amazing watching how FAST he was going in the video. And I kept thinking "if I ran my thumb over the edge that often and fast I'd be thumb less in a day!"
A strop will not keep an edge I want to use, or anyone I know wants to use, indefinitely. No way no how.
Edges dedicated to being 'touched up' by finishing hone or pasted strop needed a re-hone after 8-12 touchups, depending on variables. Steel wears, and it wears unevenly, the wear mechanisms in this dynamic creates uncomfortable edges that need correction on coarser than finishing-level abrasives.
An edge I hone can last a couple, maybe 3 few shaves before it must be stropped. But the second shave is notably not nearly as good as the first.
I shave full face, 3 or more passes, no facial hair, profile is pretty angular.
Maybe someone shaving 2 sq inches of skin on a very rounded neck profile in one direction with one pass could stretch things further.
Reporters notoriously get things wrong, embellish facts, or just misunderstand things.
some just flat out lie to make things sound good.
On another note.
The story is nice. I really like my Revisior razor.
But the last time I tried to place an order they weren't interested in doing business with me, for no apparent reason either. I had ordered many times prior without a single issue. Then after the Branch Covidian lockdown was over they, Sabine actually, would not take my order. I have no time for that sort of nonsense.
Edges dedicated to being 'touched up' by finishing hone or pasted strop needed a re-hone after 8-12 touchups, depending on variables. Steel wears, and it wears unevenly, the wear mechanisms in this dynamic creates uncomfortable edges that need correction on coarser than finishing-level abrasives.
An edge I hone can last a couple, maybe 3 few shaves before it must be stropped. But the second shave is notably not nearly as good as the first.
I shave full face, 3 or more passes, no facial hair, profile is pretty angular.
Maybe someone shaving 2 sq inches of skin on a very rounded neck profile in one direction with one pass could stretch things further.
Reporters notoriously get things wrong, embellish facts, or just misunderstand things.
some just flat out lie to make things sound good.
On another note.
The story is nice. I really like my Revisior razor.
But the last time I tried to place an order they weren't interested in doing business with me, for no apparent reason either. I had ordered many times prior without a single issue. Then after the Branch Covidian lockdown was over they, Sabine actually, would not take my order. I have no time for that sort of nonsense.
Last edited:
I have had the same experience. She absolutely refuses to ship to the US. Not sure why.
Just to give some additional short explanations here on the subject.
Indeed Werner Breidenbach only uses a leather for maintenance of the razor- for more than 40 years now. The Friodur has not been reground and has not been honed on a stone for all that time!
Werner uses black paste on the strop. He recharges the leather with black paste every two years approximately, simply rub in some paste with the heel of the hand.
The razor itself is a 7/8 Friodur in black scales without any marks on it. During his time at Paul Drees, he ground thousands of Henckels Friodur as contract work for Henckels.
Beside his hourly work for Revisor, Werner Breidenbach is still making his own razors. So last year we issued a special edition of the Dreifuss model, celebrating his 90th birthday and -at the same time- his 75 year anniversary of straight razor grinding.
He still has a lot of fun in making straight razors!
Regards hatzicho
Indeed Werner Breidenbach only uses a leather for maintenance of the razor- for more than 40 years now. The Friodur has not been reground and has not been honed on a stone for all that time!
Werner uses black paste on the strop. He recharges the leather with black paste every two years approximately, simply rub in some paste with the heel of the hand.
The razor itself is a 7/8 Friodur in black scales without any marks on it. During his time at Paul Drees, he ground thousands of Henckels Friodur as contract work for Henckels.
Beside his hourly work for Revisor, Werner Breidenbach is still making his own razors. So last year we issued a special edition of the Dreifuss model, celebrating his 90th birthday and -at the same time- his 75 year anniversary of straight razor grinding.
He still has a lot of fun in making straight razors!
Regards hatzicho
Steve56
Ask me about shaving naked!
Thank you for posting @hatzicho - quite an interesting comment.
I think that some of the confusion or apparent skepticism about maintaining a razor long term with just a strop is maybe from European vs North American traditions and wording/translation.
In Europe, it is more common, even traditional to maintain a razor with only pasted strop(s), while here a surface with artificial abrasive is not always considered ‘just stropping’. Here. ‘stropping’ usually refers to clean leather only. An example is diamond-pasted balsa, which some folk refer to as a strop, but many other folks believe that a flat surface with artificial abrasive is actually a hone.
I am curious how he’s used a pasted strop for 40 years without rounding the ‘V’ shaped bevel into a ‘U’ shape, which at some point makes the edge stop cutting. Believe me, a ‘U’ shaped bevel on an old European razor is common and takes some time to fix with stones if the steel is hard. What kind of a strop is he using with the black paste, Hanging, paddle, etc? I am just curious.
Steve
I think that some of the confusion or apparent skepticism about maintaining a razor long term with just a strop is maybe from European vs North American traditions and wording/translation.
In Europe, it is more common, even traditional to maintain a razor with only pasted strop(s), while here a surface with artificial abrasive is not always considered ‘just stropping’. Here. ‘stropping’ usually refers to clean leather only. An example is diamond-pasted balsa, which some folk refer to as a strop, but many other folks believe that a flat surface with artificial abrasive is actually a hone.
I am curious how he’s used a pasted strop for 40 years without rounding the ‘V’ shaped bevel into a ‘U’ shape, which at some point makes the edge stop cutting. Believe me, a ‘U’ shaped bevel on an old European razor is common and takes some time to fix with stones if the steel is hard. What kind of a strop is he using with the black paste, Hanging, paddle, etc? I am just curious.
Steve
Hi Steve,
yes you may be right with your remarks.
Indeed I don’t remember having seen his strop but he surely showed me one or more times. But it must be a paddle strop, since he always talked about a red and a black side from which the red side he never used, because the red paste is too sharp, too coarse for the razor. And he clearly pointed out, that stroping one time a week was the absolute maximimum he did over the years, mostly even less.
I will ask him more in detail next time I am with him.
I also read now through the english artikel posted above and indeed there are a lot of wrong translations leading to some missunderstandings. Most be a google translation or something else. So of coarse we are not speaking about razor sharpeners but razor grinders. Werner Breidenbach also has nothing to do with sanding, just grinding. I don’t know what „Reiders and pullers“ are…. The german „Reiden“ – I suppose there is no word in englich language, but that means to put the scales on the razor and „pullers“ must be translate with „honers“. So that is the last step in making a razor after it has been ground and polished. Put into scales and hone the razor to shave ready condition. And this was indeed a separate profession in Solingen beside the razor grinders. Werner Breidenbach‘s uncle had been a „Reider and Abzieher“ he always told me.
I don’t know what blue tiles are, but the walrus leather wheels glued with fine emery are used for the so-called blue polishing of the razors. And so on…
And of course, Werner Breidenbachs Friodur may not be in the best condition concerning the edge. Gamma and Steve are surely correct, that the shape must be more in form of a „U“ than a „V“. But it still cuts and gives him -as he confirmed to me again yesterday by phone, a sharp and pleasant shave.
That might be different for us shaving and honing enthusiasts, who try to get a maximum of sharpeness and smoothness out of a razor edge. But it still serves him.
Stay sharp! hatzicho
yes you may be right with your remarks.
Indeed I don’t remember having seen his strop but he surely showed me one or more times. But it must be a paddle strop, since he always talked about a red and a black side from which the red side he never used, because the red paste is too sharp, too coarse for the razor. And he clearly pointed out, that stroping one time a week was the absolute maximimum he did over the years, mostly even less.
I will ask him more in detail next time I am with him.
I also read now through the english artikel posted above and indeed there are a lot of wrong translations leading to some missunderstandings. Most be a google translation or something else. So of coarse we are not speaking about razor sharpeners but razor grinders. Werner Breidenbach also has nothing to do with sanding, just grinding. I don’t know what „Reiders and pullers“ are…. The german „Reiden“ – I suppose there is no word in englich language, but that means to put the scales on the razor and „pullers“ must be translate with „honers“. So that is the last step in making a razor after it has been ground and polished. Put into scales and hone the razor to shave ready condition. And this was indeed a separate profession in Solingen beside the razor grinders. Werner Breidenbach‘s uncle had been a „Reider and Abzieher“ he always told me.
I don’t know what blue tiles are, but the walrus leather wheels glued with fine emery are used for the so-called blue polishing of the razors. And so on…
And of course, Werner Breidenbachs Friodur may not be in the best condition concerning the edge. Gamma and Steve are surely correct, that the shape must be more in form of a „U“ than a „V“. But it still cuts and gives him -as he confirmed to me again yesterday by phone, a sharp and pleasant shave.
That might be different for us shaving and honing enthusiasts, who try to get a maximum of sharpeness and smoothness out of a razor edge. But it still serves him.
Stay sharp! hatzicho
I’d guess from the video posted above at 12:15, his weekly stropping was on a loom strop with black paste.
I’m interested to learn more about the application of the brass thumb ring.
I’m interested to learn more about the application of the brass thumb ring.
Thank you for continuing to post more information. Personally, I am of the opinion that a Man of 90 years young who has been an expert in his trade for 75 years bears a great deal of respect and has a lot more credibility than some may feel he deserves.
I for one appreciate his experience using a strop as well as you providing your personal knowledge of his life.
Similar threads
