Now THAT was a great shave

[cb91710]

Okay, I'm going to resist making disparaging comments about the fine vendors who sold me my three "professionally honed" straights, as being a complete idiot newbie, there is a good possibility that in stropping I rolled the edges of my Boker stainless and both my Dovo Bismarck and Astrale (though I am curious to an apparent warp in the tip of the Astra and can't believe that I did it "dinging" it on the basin).

So I've been shaving exclusively straights for the last 3 weeks.
First week on the Boker 5/8 stainless, 2nd week on the Dovo Bismarck, and 3rd week on the Dovo Astrale.
I was getting a fair amount of tugging and skipping, and moderate irritation under my chin from the ATG buffing... and I never could manage an ATG/XTG under my nose or on my chin. Yes, the BBS eluded me.
I wrote it off to technique and figured it would improve, as I have seen a gradual improvement over the last 3 weeks... but my improvements over the last week have been purely in the irritation level, no change in the quality of the shave.

Last night I broke out my investment of hones. Norton 4k/8k and a Naniwa 12k.
Drew on the grids and began lapping. After a couple of hours, I had a dead flat 4k, an 8k with all but the very ends flattened, and the same for the 12k.
I looked at my 3 straights, and figured I'd start with my Astrale, being the cheaper of the two carbon and not stainless.
I modified Lynn's method... since these razors were already shavers, I skipped the 4k and ran the "pyramid" using the 8k/12k.

I carefully laid the Astrale on the hone, and ***? It's rocking. Moved it to a different spot and it rocked the same. Thought I had a tweak in the hone, I checked the Bismarck... flat as a pancake.
Looked at the Astrale, seemed okay. Closed it and put a light into the scales and... yup... the tip is torqued almost touching the inside of the scales.

Against my better judgement, I went forward with that blade. I just used my fingers to gently guide the edge along the stone... no pressure at all.
3 passes on the 8k, 3 passes on the 12k, 3 passes on the 8k, 5 passes on the 12k, 1 pass on the 8k, 15 passes on the 12k.
Thumb pad test? I can't even feel the blade, but there's a slice in my thumb.
Arm hair test? Chunk of hair gone, again didn't feel the blade.

This looks promising.

I repeated the procedure on the Bismarck with the same results.
I then moved to the stainless Boker.
Similar progression, but I went 25 passes on the 12k.
Same identical results on the tests.

I moved to the Mountain Mike 3"... 20 passes on the textile (not going to call it linen, seems like nylon webbing but it's much softer than that on my Illinois) and 40 on the hyde, and put them away for the night (It was 1am).

This morning I got up with a full 60 hour's growth, showered, prepped, loaded up the MWF/Trumper's Uberlather, and went to town with the Boker stainless.

First impression? This thing is smooth. It seemed to cut better moving to the lower edges of my cheeks and jawline.
Rolling under the jaw continued to feel good, and I wasn't seeing as much stubble remaining as I normally see.

Okay, now for one of the tests... under the nose. Felt good. Again, less stubble, much smoother.
Moved to the chin. Hmm... this feels nice. I'm able to round the corner and go down my neck smoothly... I could never do that before.
Finished off the other side, same results left handed.

Okay... Now it's time for the ATG pass. Yes, the source of all of the world's shaving irritation and blood.
This thing was simply gliding like it was on rails. NO buffing under my chin, after one ATG pass I had the closest shave I've had since I left the R41 (and the R41 was more work).
Got a BBS on the front of my chin without ATG. Did some XTG touchup near my ears. Ahh... everything is feeling awesome.

The final test? Do I dare? The Fool's Pass?
I've been able to pull that off ONCE with the straight and a couple of times with the R41, and it only worked on the left side, right side ended up pulling and skipping and bleeding.
I sneaked up on my left lip, hoping it would not notice the blade approaching.

Success. With some hesitation I gently scrubbed... and scrubbed it did, all the way to my nose!
Same on the right side.
Rinse, apply the alum block... VERY little stinging... and a very even stinging everywhere. Bottom of the chin (normally extremely irritated from the multiple ATG scrubbing) had the same stinging as my cheeks.
Finished off with a splash of Ogallala... SWMBO decided she'd take me out to breakfast instead of making it

I sit here 9 hours later and my face feels like it normally does when I walk out of the bathroom with a fresh shave. Still BBS on my cheeks and lip, DFS (no stubble at all) feeling WTG on my chin and under my jawline.


I don't know if I got lucky, or if the Naniwa is THAT good and that forgiving, but I'm ready to pack the DE's away and maybe try the straight on my head next weekend.

 

[Gamma]

All of that sounds awesome.

Except the 'couple of hours' to flatten a Norton combo and a Naniwa 12k. Seriously - with 325 wet/dry or a DMT - that should take all of 30 minutes max.. and the ends are still rolled off? Something's not quite right there.

Anyhoo... yeah, the 12k is pretty forgiving... so is the Norton actually.

 

[Wid]

Congrats on a successful honing. I have never tried nor never understood going from a higher grit to lower grit to higher grit and so forth.

 

[cb91710]

Except the 'couple of hours' to flatten a Norton combo and a Naniwa 12k. Seriously - with 325 wet/dry or a DMT - that should take all of 30 minutes max.. and the ends are still rolled off? Something's not quite right there.

Ya, I was using the Norton lapping stone. It loaded up with slurry pretty quickly on the 12k so it took frequent rinsing, but even the 8k still has the last inch or so rolled off.
Not a big deal as I'm not using that end, so I'll take the time to work the stone further next weekend.

Congrats on a successful honing. I have never tried nor never understood going from a higher grit to lower grit to higher grit and so forth.

I think it's a "just in case" thing to use the next higher hone to knock off any wire edge that may have formed.

One of these days I'll have to hook up the 400x USB micro that I have on order and image a blade after each step to see exactly what's happening.

Honestly... I was very surprised that my results were THAT good.
Is it likely that I rolled the edges of all 3, or are the "professionally honed" blades not all that?


Now, Wid... What do you suggest for the apparently warped toe on the Astrale? I got it from Classic, and I shaved with it for 7 days. I don't recall knocking it on the basin, but I can't imagine that would have warped it, should have broken.
Or should I just move that one to the "display" part of the collection?

 

[Gamma]

You should be lapping under running water - that will do two things, it'll speed thing up and it'll allow you to get the stone flat.

 

[Wid]

I don't know how bad the warp is. For most uneven blades a rolling x stroke will do. If that fails honing the blade in thirds (toe, middle,heel)should also work.

 

[cb91710]

You should be lapping under running water - that will do two things, it'll speed thing up and it'll allow you to get the stone flat.

Don't have a sink available large enough for that (SWMBO has forbidden kitchen use for any hobby related activity beyond handwashing).

Next weekend I'll give it a try in the bathtub.

I don't know how bad the warp is. For most uneven blades a rolling x stroke will do. If that fails honing the blade in thirds (toe, middle,heel)should also work.

I'll see if I can get the warp to show in a picture.

It's pretty bad... Like I said, the toe is almost hitting the inside of the scales. The spine is straight, it's just a slight twist in the blade.

What I did was use my fingertips on my left hand to keep the entire edge in contact with the stone while my right hand "drove" it using the tang.
Seemed to do the job, from looking at the edge with the 100x.

 

[dakotaev]

Now, Wid... What do you suggest for the apparently warped toe on the Astrale? I got it from Classic, and I shaved with it for 7 days. I don't recall knocking it on the basin, but I can't imagine that would have warped it, should have broken.
Or should I just move that one to the "display" part of the collection?

Knocking it on the basin or anything else you could do to it would not have caused it to warp, it would have been like this from the factory production. While not desirable it's not uncommon. After all these things are primarily made by hand so they won't all be perfect. Modifying your honing technique to should be enough to get a good edge on a not so perfectly straight razor. Maybe leave that one to the pro's it until you have more honing experience under your belt. Dealing with tricky blades comes with time, and quite often some stress and lost hair...lol.

Oh and grats on the great shave, its a wonderful feeling to get the best shave of your life from a blade you honed yourself.

 

[cb91710]

Makes sense.
I live about 10 minutes away from WCS, so dropping it off that is always an option for honing, but I have to involve SWMBO to do that due to his hours.
I do get every other Friday off, so I can drop it off with instructions.

 

[Gamma]

(SWMBO has forbidden kitchen use for any hobby related activity beyond handwashing).

While that might make sense for things like degreasing a carbeurator or whatever - this really needs to be done in a sink. The bathtub will be problematic becuase the neck of the spigot won't be far enough from the wall and you'll be nuts trying to work like that. Unless you have showerhead on one of those flexible hoses.. that might work in a pinch... Geez... it's your sink too, ya know? Its not like your going to have grease all over everything... it's a pretty clean process except for some splatter here/there. It wipes up easy enough.

 

[cb91710]

LOL!

Actually, yes... we do have a removable shower head on a hose, and that is exactly what I was thinking.
There was a bit of a gritty mess in the bathroom sink, but I just filled the sink and was using that to soak and rinse the stones, so all of the slurry went into the water. Running water will alleviate that issue.

 

[Gamma]

The running water will clear the slurry off whatever you're lapping with - and that allows the stone to stay in contact with the lapping surface. Otherwise - the stone will ride on an ever increasing mound of slurry in the middle. I mean - you can do it with a pitcher of water if you had to but the running water scenario is best. Just so long as you keep the lapping surface clear of swarf you'll be fine.

 

[cb91710]

The running water will clear the slurry off whatever you're lapping with - and that allows the stone to stay in contact with the lapping surface. Otherwise - the stone will ride on an ever increasing mound of slurry in the middle. I mean - you can do it with a pitcher of water if you had to but the running water scenario is best. Just so long as you keep the lapping surface clear of swarf you'll be fine.

The pitcher thing is basically what I was doing... I'd lap until it seemed that it was gliding too freely, then I'd dunk both the hone and lapping stone back into the sink. If the lapping stone didn't release all of the swarf, then I'd give it a few laps on the 4k, then go back to lapping the 8k and 12k.

The pitcher would have been even more tedious.