McVeyMac/phat Gold Dollar Honing Experiment and Practice
- Thread starter McVeyMac
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #102
On the one I did, I honed the stabilizer so that it was on the same plane with the rest of the blade. It worked, but was a lot of work.
So, I returned home yesterday afternoon from being away, to find McVeyMac's return hone of my GD 100 had arrived.
I didn't shave yesterday, so I had 2 days growth. So, without futher ado:
Lane 1: Right Side of face:
McVeyMac re-hone of my slightly strange GD100 - no stropping, wiped and shaved.
Lane 2: Left side of face
Phat GD 66 - I took the stabilizer off this one with a dremel the exact same way as this other razor, so aside from the blue paint on the 100 and the lucky green scales on the 100, they look pretty similar. This one I did 20 passes on the suede and
60 cordovan, as I had shaved on it once before since it came off the hones.
The key difference is the bevel. I took a careful look but did not measure.. The '66, being a relatively symetrical one, has a bevel that's even on both sides. it's nice and shiny, the 100, while also having a nice shiny bevel (possibly not a shiny as the '66, but I may attribute that to arkansas vs. film finishining properties) is as I remember it from when I honed it - the blade's a bit warped, and as such the bevel is not symetrical all the way down the blade..
Anyway on the shave:
Software:
MWF: mug lathered. Love da fat.
Whipped Dog Silvertip (so glad to be back on this from the travel brush)
Cold water splash (that's actually cold.. Love canada..)
Floid Blue AS.
N-S, S-N, then mouth to Ear and N-S with a bit of cleanup, both sides I attempted to shave the same.
Both razors shaved very well - better than I was able to manage with the Le Grelot I was travelling with last week, and both gave a super good shave However, the 100 was noticably not as smooth as the 66. It was still good, but actually the 66 was fantastic. I didn't *want* to give the edge to the '66, but I'm going to have to. I notice a tiny bit of feeling, DFS style on my right sideburn, where my left is completely smooth.. Shaving technique was the same on both and both got the same little extra bit of cleanup. Had I done *extra* on the right side of the face with the 100, I probably would have gotten it just as smooth however, the 100 still shaves very well, just with a little more pull than the 66.
Now to be completely fair, looking at the bevels on these I'm hardly surprised - as the bevel on the 66 goes right down the middle of the blade, and the 100 it moves across the blade with the warp, I'm not suprised at all that the 100 doesn't feel as nice as the 66.. it's still very smooth (and I would have been very happy to have it last week, it shaves better than my Le Grelot). However I can't imagine it's really possible to get that asymmetric bevel as smooth as a nice even bevel, so short of "un-warping" the blade I'm not sure this could ever be a "fair" comparison of honing.. in my experience so far McVeyMac's A game is pretty comparable to mine, so I was kind of surprised I could notice such a difference until I looked at both blades and thought about it.
So Walt -whattaya figure? Time to PIF a couple of these babies, or should I do one more shave-off?
I didn't shave yesterday, so I had 2 days growth. So, without futher ado:
Lane 1: Right Side of face:
McVeyMac re-hone of my slightly strange GD100 - no stropping, wiped and shaved.
Lane 2: Left side of face
Phat GD 66 - I took the stabilizer off this one with a dremel the exact same way as this other razor, so aside from the blue paint on the 100 and the lucky green scales on the 100, they look pretty similar. This one I did 20 passes on the suede and
60 cordovan, as I had shaved on it once before since it came off the hones.
The key difference is the bevel. I took a careful look but did not measure.. The '66, being a relatively symetrical one, has a bevel that's even on both sides. it's nice and shiny, the 100, while also having a nice shiny bevel (possibly not a shiny as the '66, but I may attribute that to arkansas vs. film finishining properties) is as I remember it from when I honed it - the blade's a bit warped, and as such the bevel is not symetrical all the way down the blade..
Anyway on the shave:
Software:
MWF: mug lathered. Love da fat.
Whipped Dog Silvertip (so glad to be back on this from the travel brush)
Cold water splash (that's actually cold.. Love canada..)
Floid Blue AS.
N-S, S-N, then mouth to Ear and N-S with a bit of cleanup, both sides I attempted to shave the same.
Both razors shaved very well - better than I was able to manage with the Le Grelot I was travelling with last week, and both gave a super good shave However, the 100 was noticably not as smooth as the 66. It was still good, but actually the 66 was fantastic. I didn't *want* to give the edge to the '66, but I'm going to have to. I notice a tiny bit of feeling, DFS style on my right sideburn, where my left is completely smooth.. Shaving technique was the same on both and both got the same little extra bit of cleanup. Had I done *extra* on the right side of the face with the 100, I probably would have gotten it just as smooth however, the 100 still shaves very well, just with a little more pull than the 66.
Now to be completely fair, looking at the bevels on these I'm hardly surprised - as the bevel on the 66 goes right down the middle of the blade, and the 100 it moves across the blade with the warp, I'm not suprised at all that the 100 doesn't feel as nice as the 66.. it's still very smooth (and I would have been very happy to have it last week, it shaves better than my Le Grelot). However I can't imagine it's really possible to get that asymmetric bevel as smooth as a nice even bevel, so short of "un-warping" the blade I'm not sure this could ever be a "fair" comparison of honing.. in my experience so far McVeyMac's A game is pretty comparable to mine, so I was kind of surprised I could notice such a difference until I looked at both blades and thought about it.
So Walt -whattaya figure? Time to PIF a couple of these babies, or should I do one more shave-off?
- Thread starter
- #104
As I noted in my journal where I was traveling with my GD 100, I noticed how rough the darn thing was compared to when my very best can be. the only thing that I can attribute this to is that I did use the Soft and Hard Arkansas stones as my midrange with these razors, and perhaps they were not broken in the way they should be. My work on the Translucent and Black (Ultra Fine) was probably inadequate to ride the edge of the coarseness left behind from those stones. I have used synthetic mid range stones in the past and finished with these Arks to a very fine result, so this is the only thing I can think of.
I am not sure why the edges of yours and my GD felt ok when I shave tested them. They felt indistinguishable to each other, which I think I was focusing on. When I got min by itself and shaved with it, I really felt the difference.
I am going to take mine back to the finishing stones to see if I can smooth out the edge, then I will be ready for the PIF.
OK, So I have put up the PIF for the NON-CONUSA GD100 :
http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...ave-Ready-for-a-new-straight-shaver-NON-CONUS
http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showth...ave-Ready-for-a-new-straight-shaver-NON-CONUS
- Thread starter
- #106
