What Straight Razor Have You Honed Lately????

I honed four razors this afternoon. Two Kamisori and two westerns. The bevels look beautiful and I look forward to the shave tests.

 

Beautiful razors, all 4!

 

Thank you. I just shaved with the Tosuke and very happy with the edge.

 

Excellent job. I should have done several myself, but, I had work today, and then I mowed a couple of yards.

 

I just restored this Wade & Butchet. Taped the spine and started with a fresh bevel. Finished on the trans Arkie. I have three days of scruff to try this fella out on for tomorrow's shave.

 

I was going to touch up my PRC western grind kamisori and then ooops (I don't want to talk about it) I chipped the edge. So I had to go all the way back to a Naniwa SS 1k and work up my progression finishing with a Shapton glass 16k. This was one of my top shavers, I hope I have restored the edge to it's prior greatness.

Since I had the stones out I also did some touch ups.

Zulu Grey - J West and Hart Steel straight point 7/8

Shapton 12k - Shapton Glass 16k : Hart Steel 7/8 round point, Dovo Bismarck

 

I had a couple of hours, plus, to kill, early in the morning.
I progressed through the Welsh Slate Stones, and took them to the Surgical Black Arkie progression. Easy Peasy, so I thought.

Top Razor:
"Imperial Razor" Warranted. Extra Hollow Ground.
It was the worst one, visually, but wasn't bad to hone. The blade and spine were perfectly flat. It required two layers of tape. The bevel was not difficult to set, and it progressed rapidly through the stones. Only about 50 laps on the 600 Grit SB Arkie side, and 30 on the 1000 grit side. It was easy to strop, and popped any it touched. It should give a very nice shave.

Middle Razor:
"Geo.Wostenholm & Sons IXL" Sheffiel England. Ivory scales.
This was a bugger to set a bevel. It looked the best, at the start, but under the 60x loupe, that told a different story. The bevel was a crusty mess. It took a long while to set a bevel, kill the edge, set the bevel, kill the edge, etc., several times. This went on until good steel was uniform on the entire edge. Then it was just a matter on hitting the 3k?, 8k 12k 15k Welsh Slate Stones, and the SB Arkie progression.
The blade was straight as an arrow, so after the bevel set, it went fast. This took a wickedly sharp edge, from the very tip of the toe, to the heel.

Bottom Razor:
"Bengall" Monkey Tail, Horn scales.
This was a bugger to polish out, blade and scales. But, once it hit the hones, it went very fast. The steel is pretty hard, but a DMT slurry on the 1k took it down fairly quickly. It needed the least amount of time on the stones, because it was cast and ground beautifully flat. It was a pleasure to hone. It was a viciously sharp razor, that I cannot wait to try.

 

Finally had some time to play with a few new toys. 9/8's ali's chopper with a barbers notch I snagged for a very reasonable price. Seller said was not shave ready but didn't know what to expect til I got it. Some micro chipping and 1/4th on toe end was dinged, one that went half way into the bevel. Put her on a really fast coti with heavy slurry to make short work of it and got past it surprisingly quick. Wonder if I'll be wishing it was just a tad harder of a temper, we'll see how the edge handles over time. Once done with water on the coti switched over to a new to me droescher, yup it was me who got it for those who saw it.is very close in colour to my smaller one which I love so had to have it. Light green but slurry's yellow. Fabulous finisher with plenty of real estate to play on. All done with single layer on the spine. Might try 2 next time depending on durability of the edge, have to say the grind on this beast is really on point. The man is definitely highly skilled and very precise on details. The first shave was just like a w/b or a wosty and the likes, sharp+silent+smooth just slightly larger . My cv mark7 for comparison.

 

Holy blade, Batman!! Nice

 

My had,rad and bad are all in full throttle. But I'm getting it back under control now. Though,,, could use some new soaps and as and I need some horn blanks anyway...

 

I honed three today. Each was very easy to find a bevel, except the Harthy. That's some tough, hard steel. In the end I finished them off with the SB Arkie, between 20-30 laps on each side of the progression. I'll see if that's too little, or just enough tonight.

Top:
Japanese "Old Cherry"

Middle:
Harthy Razor. Made from Austria Phoenix Steel

Bottom;
Russian 1950's. A little rough looking, with a wavy blade, but hard fine steel.

 

That Hearthy is a nice looking razor.

 

Second time around. Two layers of tape this time. Started with the Nortons 1,4,8k finished with 50 laps on the diamond film, then 50 more with a paper cushion. Finally 150 laps on the trans Arkie. Success! Amazing how an inanimate razor can humble you.

 

Glad to hear. Because if an old straight razor ever needs three layers of tape, its time for it to go into the wife's tool bag for use as a pocket knife/screwdriver/pry bar, etc.!

 

I slowly completed four razors over the past three days. These will be my last razors for a while.
All four were done with the same progression.

All razors were hollow-ground. All with a single layer of 3m tape applied across the spine.

Bevel set:
Cholera Pro 1000

Sharpen:
All synthetic with Naniwa SuperStones
3k > 5k

Polish:
Naniwa SS 8k > 10k > 12k
Apache Strata Natural; raised a light slurry with Atoma 600; diluting until final laps with just water.

Linen laps and Fast Bridle leather strop.

Smmooooooth & sharp!
All ship out tomorrow.

 

Pics????

 

The razors or the hones?


Razors are mostly packed for shipping. I did take a shot of one— this fine-looking Böker—from this morning's SOTD.

 

ANOTHER good reason not to be honing with one hand in a brace: Accidents will happen!
I managed to drop my vintage Escher dark Blue water stone onto the concrete floor. As it was falling, I lunged for it and wound up knocking it about 5 feet in the air away from me. Of course the fragile hone fell from it's oak box and hit the hard ground with a brick-like thud.
After some choice words, I reached down hoping to find it still intact.
Well, almost. The top corner had flaked off (.5 x1" in size) by the impact. Fortunately, the majority of the hone remained intact.

I applied some superglue and reattached the large chip. Not perfect, but I'm thankful nothing 'fatal' (such as a mid line break) occurred.
When I'm able, I'll spend some time lapping the corner flush as possible. <sigh>......

 

That had to be horrible watching this stone fly through the air. It looks like you were able to salvage it. Good job.

 

It all happened in a split second but in my mind, it was in slow motion with me moving in super slow motion with a prolonged groan of, "Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!!"