Shapton GS7 .44

[alex1921]

Just in case anyone is interested. I ordered mine from a place in Texas. Cheaper than most places, 10% discount till the 19th, free shipping and they charge no sales tax if you are out of state.

 

[JPO]

exactly does it act after you rub a lower grit G7 against it? And exactly what grit do you use for rubbing?

In my experience it acts a little finer/smoother. I usually use a 2k G7 stone. I don't think the grit matters that much. A finer grit will just cause the stones to stick together.
I only do it with the highest grit stones, I.e. the 0.85 and the 0.44.
A hard stone that is 30k, and flattened with a course diamond plate will benefit in my opinion.
If I use one of these finest stones I only do a few passes. That might not be enough to smooth out the surface.

In general I like the shapton glass stones freshly lapped with a diamond plate. The highest grits are treated differently.
I have a 30k shapton pro stone. I find no benefits of any surface preps with this one. I just lap the stone before each use with a diamond plate 1200 or 600 grit.
Maybe it is just some nonsense I feel is workings well

 

[ZeelandsRoem]

Thank you, JPO. I will give it a try as well to see how I like it. But I think you're right. After I lap mines with the Atoma 1200, they feel a bit rough and it takes a while until they feel smooth again, so rubbing with another G7 should improve the surface a bit.

They cut pretty quickly and the 0.49 or 0.44 can be good finishers. From what I noticed under the microscope, even five laps might be enough, but somewhere around ten is better.

And speaking of this stone, I need to try two things this weekend, which have been on my radar for a while:
1. Do only 4 laps on the stone, strop on clean leather and then shave to see how it works
2. Do more than 5 laps on the stone, skip stropping and shave with that edge. I expect it might be harsh but I am still curious how harsh it will be.

Note: what I am going to say below may not make a lot of sense, I know. I just wanted to try it in order to satisfy my curiosity.

Okay, so I did the following last weekend:
I took the same razor I used the day before, a LeGrelot. Very lightly, I killed the edge on GS 30000 and then I started to lap it on the same stone to understand how quickly it takes to bring that edge back.

1. I counted the first 4 laps, but the edge did not feel better. I was a chicken and I skipped shaving with that.
2. I kept lapping until the edge felt good again on the stone. I am not sure how many laps I ended up doing, but I think it must have been around 20 laps. Then, I inspected the edge under the microscope to make sure it did not chipped and it looked pretty good, I could not see any differences with respect on how it looked before I killed the edge. Then, I also skipped stropping and I went straight to shaving. Now, I must say I was not very excited to try it but eventually, the edge was not that bad. It was definitely cutting really well, but it was not very comfortable, I did feel it a bit. The aftershave test was also okay-ish, I've had worse (in my early days of straight razor honing ).