A few more laps on the Ark for the second Bengall I’ve been working on before it gets its maiden shave tomorrow. I bought a lot of two Bengalls and this one was kind of a freebie thrown in with a nice one. It was a real rust bucket when I got it. I wasn’t even sure if I could get it shaving but I think the edge is on point now. There’s oil on the blade in the photo. I had to work through a fair amount of pitting to get to the good steel. I haven’t managed to get all of the toe sharpened but I don’t think that will matter. Chasing it too much would only make the upturn worse.
With a bit of work I think this could actually be quite a nice beginner razor. It’s a nice size for a beginner with the safety of a round point. The geometry is actually pretty good. It’s a nice straight blade apart from the upturned toe. There weren’t any tricks required to get it honed. Just straight back and forth mainly with a touch of a roll thrown in for good measure. The Sheffield steel was fairly easy to work on. Even getting the chips out didn’t take terribly long. It still has a few years of use in it but no one is going to cry if they trash it. This could be a potential PIF at some stage but only if I am able to get it shaving to my satisfaction.
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Beautiful razor…and stone Alex!Touched the duck on the new kiita with almost water and the edge was just a tad too crisp for me. Why not tame it with a thuri? BD to the rescue. Finished on light slurry as you can see dried on the stone. Maintained it's sharpness but the comfort increased. Great BBS shave tonight.
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Thank you Matt. That's the DD I got from you.Beautiful razor…and stone Alex!
They are just fantastic razors! I am glad that you like it!Thank you Matt. That's the DD I got from you.
Absolutely.They are just fantastic razors! I am glad that you like it!
Two purple stones tonight. (Or atleast purple in sunlight.)
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Testing out a nice purple slate for the first time using one of my favorite tester razors, The humble Tritch Hardware Denver Colorado razor. The purple slate has a slightly raspy feeling feedback even though the stone is quite soft. Not as slick feeling as expected under the razor. The razor had a very nice thuringian edge previously and im curious to see the change. Based on mag and hair tests the stone didnt cause any set backs atleast.
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Also worked on a new to me George Wostenholm IXL razor. I was very surprised at how nice the edge looked under magnification before starting. Zero nicks, very clean bevel, and shaving arm hairs easy. Worked it on a raspy coticule for a while but just couldn't get the hair test like I wanted it. Flipped over to the BBW side of the stone which is very tight grained and has some yellow dots peeking through. On this stone the bbw side had hone wear orginally and I can see why, it is much finer than the yellow side. From raspy to silk. With just a few minutes of work the razor was passing my initial hair tests. We will see how the shave goes tomorrow!
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I've got one and I've talked about it here a couple times. I think you might be the first person I've read who didn't find slurry to be detrimental.50 passes on a mist of slurry. Then just honed away on water, 200+ strokes to see what would happen. I had read people saying the hone would get sticky eventually but it never happened.
I've got one and I've talked about it here a couple times. I think you might be the first person I've read who didn't find slurry to be detrimental.
The stiction thing, I think only happens consistently if you hone under a trickle of water at the sink, and it does happen fairly quickly on mine, 20 to 25 laps. I get better edges with a spray bottle and going a little longer. Oil seems to work nicely too. If I use a little more pressure I get some rogue scratches.
It seems to bump the keenness up a hair from my Fuji 8k but the really interesting thing is the face feel is really nice, almost soothing. I generally prefer an edge that's a little keener but it does feel really nice to me. Where I use it most often is about 20 laps on it between the 8k and my trans ark.
Your post inspired me to grab my test razor today and hit the ILR with it. I did a few laps on the Fuji 8k and then did about 30 on the ILR with water only. It was a very smooth, comfortable shave. I did have another razor handy with a wicked sharp ark edge to compare. Audible feedback suggested that the ILR edge was marginally less keen, but it was also marginally more gentle on my face.I had read that slurry was not great on this stone and was surprised not to find it unpleasant. It seems quite fine to me, no decernable grit. I did have to work maybe 4x as long to make slurry as I would of needed to with a thuri which was not fun. And it was only a barely visible mist at that.
I didn't realize the running water was important for stiction, my bathroom sink is too low to do running water and I don't often try it.
My shave was good, I really like shaving off this 10k naniwa Kagayaki, and this shave felt just as good. Will see what the ILR does from a 5k stone next.