After a gap of nearly a year or so, after getting my Naniwa 400 and 1000 bevel setter stones this week, I decided to venture in to honing a gold dollar 66 straight razor. I have a few which I had got a few years ago, however not much took off back then in motivating me to straight razor shave.
First and foremost I spent a lot of time sudying the geometry of the razor and realised that I had to first get the plane of the spine and the edge close so that I could attempt to set a bevel
With a sharpie, I realised that the shoulder was too thick and coming in the way of the hone as the heel of the razor on the "gold dollar" printed side sat inside a crater sorrounded by steel edges consisting of the spine, a bulbous shoulder and some part of the heel edge edge
I did most of the work with the Naniwa 400 and 1000 to try and make the spine and edge aligned using varying pressure points while honing. I had to hone the shoulder to allow the spine and the heel to come flat on the hone. Also required for an area to form in the heel area. One of yje photos of the shoulder down the spine shows how thick the shoulder is and it had to be grinded in to a triangle to make an apex on the heel. Yet its not as good.
End result, I could make a decent bevel except at the tip of the heel which seemed impossible to get due to the thick shoulder and that tip aligned around it.
I had a shave with the final edge and I got a surprisingly good shave. I no longer have a goatee so it was a first time full face shave, especially the thick stubble on the "goatee" part.
I did not do more than 2 passes and some few touch ups to get a decent shave, except the mustache area where I couldn't figure out the moves (and the courage / confidence to actually do it)
Attaching some pictures and I am requesting views especially any criticism you may have of what could have been done better. Images are from my humble samsung galaxy phone without a macro lens, hence please excuse the lack of sharpness.
- The plane of the edge and the spine was in a slight X offset
- The shoulder was a bulbous convex fat lip, making it necessary to deal with before I could lay the razor flat on the hone
- No tape was used through the session
- Progression : Naniwa Chosera 400, 1000, Norton 4k/8k, Naniwa 12k, Cotton strop, leather strop, DMT coarse diamond plate
First and foremost I spent a lot of time sudying the geometry of the razor and realised that I had to first get the plane of the spine and the edge close so that I could attempt to set a bevel
With a sharpie, I realised that the shoulder was too thick and coming in the way of the hone as the heel of the razor on the "gold dollar" printed side sat inside a crater sorrounded by steel edges consisting of the spine, a bulbous shoulder and some part of the heel edge edge
I did most of the work with the Naniwa 400 and 1000 to try and make the spine and edge aligned using varying pressure points while honing. I had to hone the shoulder to allow the spine and the heel to come flat on the hone. Also required for an area to form in the heel area. One of yje photos of the shoulder down the spine shows how thick the shoulder is and it had to be grinded in to a triangle to make an apex on the heel. Yet its not as good.
End result, I could make a decent bevel except at the tip of the heel which seemed impossible to get due to the thick shoulder and that tip aligned around it.
I had a shave with the final edge and I got a surprisingly good shave. I no longer have a goatee so it was a first time full face shave, especially the thick stubble on the "goatee" part.
I did not do more than 2 passes and some few touch ups to get a decent shave, except the mustache area where I couldn't figure out the moves (and the courage / confidence to actually do it)
Attaching some pictures and I am requesting views especially any criticism you may have of what could have been done better. Images are from my humble samsung galaxy phone without a macro lens, hence please excuse the lack of sharpness.
Last edited: