Stupid Nakayama.

[SliceOfLife]

Well I've been working on and off with my Nakayama Karasu to find a way to get a stable edge and today I was giving it a try when I got my first real owie. It was a simple lower lip WTG pass. I shivered and right where my razor would have stopped against the skin if it had been finished on any other stone, it swept right through and removed a chunk of my chin the diameter of a pencil eraser and about 3mm deep. I held the styptic on there for a good 30 seconds with a couple rewettings and was rewarded with a nice clean look at a hole in my chin. Very interesting. Did you know that there are regular little white specks (follicles?) on the very lowest layers of skin. I then finished my shave, put some antibiotic grease on the wound (to protect it from the agony I'm sure aftershave would have inflicted) and hit my face with some Pinaud Clubman. I pressed a bandaid on and then blood started up and soaked the gauze in a matter of seconds. Ouch. It's all the Nakayama's fault.

On the other hand, very nice smooth shave aside from the missing chunk of my chin and all. The stone is pretty interesting. Coming off the stone it cuts arm hair like a 3-4k finish. If I wipe the blade after honing, it wont even cut arm hair, so I go straight to the cloth strop with a wet blade. I strop it about 1/2 as much on cloth and about 2x as much on leather as I strop after my other stones. I'm rewarded with very clean silent falls. The edge seemed to hold up for this entire shave and was comparable to my Thuri's (Can't say if it's better or not yet). I'll have to see how many shaves it holds up for.

 

[ouch]

Bad Nakayama. Bad, bad naughty Nakayama.

 

[dakotaev]

Ouch! Kudos for finishing a shave with a gash like that. The few times I've had a serious cut I've bailed out and finished with a DE.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Ouch! Kudos for finishing a shave with a gash like that. The few times I've had a serious cut I've bailed out and finished with a DE.

Oh hell, DE's mess me up much worse than straights do. With straights, worst case I typically get is a little scratch on my sideburns about equivalent to a thorn bush scrape (let the point drag a little bit when touching up usually). With DE's I scrape my neck raw trying to get a BBS shave. A Bail-out for me would be to finish with a Coticule finished razor.

 

[natchez]

Oh hell, DE's mess me up much worse than straights do. With straights, worst case I typically get is a little scratch on my sideburns about equivalent to a thorn bush scrape (let the point drag a little bit when touching up usually). With DE's I scrape my neck raw trying to get a BBS shave. A Bail-out for me would be to finish with a Coticule finished razor.

This made me really laugh. Sorry about your wound Ian and hope it heals quickly and without any trouble.

 

[Aloxite]

Takes some balls to reach for an alcohol based aftershave after a cut like that.

 

[jendeindustries]

I was thinking the same thing!

If you want to punish that nakayama properly, I'll be happy to do it for you

 

[honed]

You cut a big hole in your face & then proceeded to reach for the Clubman?
You sir, have real guts!

That is close to when Rambo is setting gunpowder on fire to clean out his wounds

 

[mainaman]

I remember you made a post about that Karasu a while ago , please remind me how you are using it?
I found out that super fast stones can over hone and edge in a blink of an eye so you have to be really careful how many passes you do on the stone.

 

[professorchaos]

Thanks, now I really want a Karasu. What the hell is wrong with me?

 

[mainaman]

Thanks, now I really want a Karasu. What the hell is wrong with me?

IMHO nothing

 

[honed]

Thanks, now I really want a Karasu. What the hell is wrong with me?

You are just caring about your appearance.
The modern man is supposed to be well groomed, so nothing wrong with taking steps to get a good shave

 

[SliceOfLife]

I remember you made a post about that Karasu a while ago , please remind me how you are using it?
I found out that super fast stones can over hone and edge in a blink of an eye so you have to be really careful how many passes you do on the stone.

It's really hard to explain. Basically I just go by feel. I gave up on just using a tiny number of passes as wasting the stone's potential, so now I use it like any other finisher, going by the feedback to tweak the edge in. Sometimes it needs pressure, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it needs to have a sopping wet slurry, sometimes it needs an almost dry clay mud slurry. I just work on it until the feedback tells me I'll be satisfied with the edge, then I go straight to the strop (wiping or testing edge in ANY way pre-stropping seems to kill my edge. My guess is there are hanging bits of fatigued metal that those things might cause to tear away at the good metal behind them and stropping is the most clean way to remove the bad metal, however I won't be able to confirm this suspicion until I spend a lot of time going between the hone and my microscope. )

I've had three shaves in a row now (different razors) where the edge didn't seem to degrade at all during the shave (problem I was having off this stone is that the edge would crumble during the WTG pass and razor would be dull for any further passes).

 

[professorchaos]

IMHO nothing

You are just caring about your appearance.
The modern man is supposed to be well groomed, so nothing wrong with taking steps to get a good shave

Excellent. Thanks for confirming that I've not lost my mind.

 

[riooso]

I have found that J-Nats have a real habit of hiding just how sharp they really are, because they are just so smooth. There are different levels of keenness that can be tempered, for instance, by how heavy the slurry is and whether you go to just water. I personally like the uber smooth sharp blade but one must have a very light touch and watch the angle...or they will bite!


Take Care,
Richard

 

[Aloxite]

Excellent. Thanks for confirming that I've not lost my mind.

I wouldn't read too much into his post. IMHO, we're all here because we're not all there.

 

[SliceOfLife]

we're all here because we're not all there.

This should be a user title.

 

[jacksam]

The stone is pretty interesting. Coming off the stone it cuts arm hair like a 3-4k finish. If I wipe the blade after honing, it wont even cut arm hair, so I go straight to the cloth strop with a wet blade.

Anyone has an explanation for this

 

[SliceOfLife]

I mentioned my best guess for the reason in one of my posts already. I'll know more when I have time to do some testing with my microscope at hand.