What's new

Straightrazorplace Limited Edition at www.classicshaving.com

Tony Miller

Speaking of horse butts…
I sold Iwan the razor mentioned. Actually he bought one of several variants of the Bismarck. Most have sen the red or black plastic handle version but there are several lesser sen bone handle models. The one pictured has a round nose, flat bone scales and a silver colored inlay. Mine has a square point, beveled bone handles without inlay. The square point gives it a very vintage look. I sell these at $110 US and they are pre-honed by one of the SRP Honemeisters. They are a special order though, not a stock item.

I was toying with the idea of a 7 day set for myself.

Tony
 
catatonic said:
I'm a knife nut, so I know a good edge when i feel one.

In case of straight razors, you still have to learn what a good edge is. Even the worst shaving edge is way better than your sharpest knife.

catatonic said:
I felt it bite quite nicely during the "thumbnail" test, but never felt a single bit of roughness (or serration), just a nice long pull.

That is a very good way to distroy a shaving edge. Thumbnail test is done at the earlier stages of honing, and not after the razor has been honed and stropped.


Nenad
 
catatonic said:
I'm a knife nut, so I know a good edge when i feel one. The edge he put on that razor was super fine. I felt it bite quite nicely during the "thumbnail" test, but never felt a single bit of roughness (or serration), just a nice long pull. It was sharp enough to use for beard trimming (hanging hairs).

I don't want to hurt your feelings, but you damaged the edge quite badly when you did that "thumbnail" test -- that test should never be performed on a blade once it leaves the 4k hone. Unfortunately, experience with knives doesn't translate well to razors, they are a whole other level of sharp, and because of the extreme angle (~15 degrees, vs ~35-50 for knives) they are extremely delicate as well. Black and translucent arkansas stones are about 1k grit, and serious knife honers may go to 4k grit. Razors don't even start getting shave-ready until the 8k-15k range, while serious razor honers go to about 80k-100k grit.
 
Ah, lesson learned. I figured since a sharpfinger knife is typically honed sharp (at least that's how I was taught to hone sharpfingers) enough to slice hairs off an arm, and how tough those are (pretty fragile for a knife, but still pretty durable), that the thumbnail wouldn't mess anything up.

Fortunately it still shaves very well. I'll just keep in mind to not do that again. So what's a good gague for measuring final sharpness over the length of the blade?
 
The only test that matters is shaving, the others are only used because they're quicker and less trouble. The blade should shave across the grain without pulling or catching, and an Abrams, Chandler, or Crowley honed blade should feel less like shaving and more like you're just wiping the lather off your face, and should leave you BBS with little effort.
 
Top Bottom