In new to straights also that's why I'm asking for advice. Only just looking into maintaining my razor and less than 30 shaves in but I'll get there in the end .
Straight Shaving for Beginners
- Thread starter Rowlers
- Start date
SammieM
Forum GOD!
Depending on what edges you like you have few options. The two most inexpensive options are to get a balsa and diamond paste and couple of tiles to make balsa strops. You can also get lapping film(without glue on the back). This is cheap and effective. Edges are a bit harsh as the grits are high.
The next inexpensive option is to get a Thuringian stone from Peter Buhlmann and that can keep you going indefinitely if you don’t damage the edge. 50-90€ depending on size. Edges are more forgiving than the diamond pastes and are plenty keen. To the point if you aren’t careful with a lap count they become harsh as the Thuringians he sells are pretty fine and he collects them from the old Escher mines.
Another option that is somewhat inexpensive is getting a synthetic 12k such as Naniwa SuperStone. Personally, I am not a fan of synthetics and don’t own one. Lots of people swear by them as they are foolproof and you get exactly the 12k edge.
With naturals things vary and you can get a comfortable and not that sharp and edge if you use slurry or coticule or if you use water only in the stone it can get very keen. Hope this helps. Let me know if you need any info or clarification. More than happy to share my experience… I am not a pro or one of those honemeisters, but I am happy with my edges.
Twelvefret
Forum GOD!
Years ago I watched a video of a person using a sponge to wipe the blade during the shaving process. This was such a good suggestion.
Geordieboy
Über Member
What are popular SR brands, and can you link to their websites?
Based on the photos i see this differently. We are shaving with the edge, not the bevel. When you magnify the actual apex of these artist club blades they are close to perfect. Part of the reason they do not cut that well (for me at least) is the bevel angle. I think the Feather pro blades have three bevels. The last one is around 19 deg. A SR at 16 deg bevel angle, even if the edge/apex is slightly more obtuse will/might shave better, with more comfort, provided it is honed right. The coating needs to be removed to be able to inspect these blades. They look quite different without the coating.
The SR photo shows a more polished bevel, but the apex is in some parts really ragged. If i had seen this under my scope i would need to take a few steps back. The 1k scratches are still visible.
This is one example of a under honed edge, where someone have moved from stone to stone to early.
UKRob
Forum GOD!
The edge is merely the apex of the bevel and is a direct reflection of the grit sizes used in polishing the bevel. I don’t see that’s it’s possible to have a ragged edge on a smooth bevel - the saw tooth effect on the edge is merely a set of scratch marks that start at the base of the bevel and continue to the edge. If you use finer and finer grits, the depth of the scratch is reduced on the bevel AND the edge.
Yes, but in this particular case the deeper striations are just polished, they are still visible, and causes issues at the apex.
I have learned this the hard way.
It can be, and it still is for me hard to know when to move from one grit to the next.
Having a microscope can be a really nice learning tool, but it takes practice to judge what you are looking at.
Makes you wonder how they ever got an edge good enough to shave with in the old days without the aid of a microscope. Personally, I think if you can't see imperfections with a 10X loupe then you are good to go. I think virtually any edge/bevel will look bad under heavy magnification leading to a lot of tail chasing.
Bob
Bob
I like coticule and Arkansas edges. They do not look nice under magnification. A synthetic edge actually needs to look nice under magnification to shave good most of the time.
Even at high magnification it is really hard to tell how well an edge will work. With practice a loupe is all you need to cover the ground work.
UKRob
Forum GOD!
I disagree with your interpretation here. You are not polishing the striation - moving up a grit will still remove metal, it just takes longer. If you have set a bevel at 1000 grit then the usual progression would be to double the grit until you are happy - let’s say finishing at 10k. However, you could go straight to the 10k after the 1k and end up with exactly the level of polished bevel and edge as the progression - it would just take far longer.
When the 10k grit is no longer removing metal, the scratch marks are 10k scratch marks - no longer the 1k that you started with and this applies at the edge just as much as the bevel, therefore your comment that you are polishing a deep straition is wrong in my opinion.
I do not think we disagree too much. It is just my terrible way of explaining my self
. Polishing the striation is probably a bad description. Even finishing stones in the 8-10k rang can remove allot of material, and thus be capable of more then just polishing.Part of the problem when doing large grit jumps i knowing when you have done enough to erase the deeper scratches. The bevel will look like a mirror long before the apex is fully refined. Gradual refinement usually yield better results, partly because there is a benefit from the particle hitting the apex, in addition to working on the bevel flat.
Here is a test i did a while back. On this razor you have a chip in the edge that i discovered a little too late. I was testing what a large grit jump did to the edge, and how well even a fine grit stone removed a micro chip. The edge after the 8k looks like a mirror under a loupe. The chip will not be visible even with a 60x loupe after the 8k, but might still lead to issues later. After the 16-17k all the striations are removed from the 8k, but the apex is not refined. It just gets to thin and starts to fall apart if you continue on that stone. JNAT to the rescue. The slurry is able to refine the apex without damaging it.
GS7 2k striation
GS7 1.2 (8k). Now i found a chip in the edge. The striations from the 2k is more or less gone. The sensible think would be to go back to the 2k, but i wanted to see what happened if i moved to the 0.85 (16-17k). One more "big" jump.
GS7 0.85 micron. Now the chip have become smaller, but the edge is beginning to get more fragile. It is beginning to get a little rougher on some parts of the edge.
JNAT with light tomo slurry. The chip is now more or less gone. You will not notice this during a shave. More work with another slurry would probably clean up the edge more.
I now inspected the blade and found a small microchip in a different part of the edge. The chip is really small, but it is not a good sign. The last photo will show how little it takes just by doing 10 passes on TI white paste on balsa. This is in my opinion caused by the deeper striations from the 2k that was not visible before. This might have been avoided if i had put in a 4k or a 6k after the 2k. I am not sure, but i do not see this if i use smaller jumps in grit.
After 10 passes on TI white paste on balsa and leather stropping the micro chip is still there, but will not be felt during a shave. However, it is a weak spot in the edge that might brake off after a few shaves.
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Will a shave ready stroped razor edge deteriorate over time if left unused? I got a koraat 2+ months ago which I haven’t used yet as I am trying to learn first with another straight afraid not messing with that . Will the feeling I get when I decide to first use it change depending on how much time will have passed?