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SOTD SUNDAY MORNING, MAY 8, 2022
Well the rain’s stopped. It’s an unseasonably cool 45°F with a 10° improvement in the offing. My geriatric cat, 18 yr old Mitten, the last remaining of my wife’s original three, had no interest in going out. He spends his days lying on the various heat vents around the house or sharing a warm sunny part of the carpet with Gromit, his dachshund buddy. They used to be rivals, as the Grom was very close to his littermate, Cassie, leading to conflicts for her attention. When she passed two months ago, they made up and now are apparently best buds. Gromit sits to my right as I write this, and Mitten to my left on the couch.
The mug shave was awesome. Although the Filarmonica Novodur 13 was well honed, I still decided to touch it up on the Suehiro Gokumyo 20k last night. The edge was immaculate under the USB microscope, but did have some very faint striations. Nine laps of a new technique polished the striations away leaving a mirror bright edge. Just out of curiosity, and from having heard others talk of stropless shaves following a Gokumyo 20k session, I decided to give it a whirl. My son had shared with me an advanced finishing technique he learned at a traditional Japanese Kamisori Honing workshop he attended in Seki City when he was in Japan on business a few years ago.
This combination honing/stone stropping technique was apparently developed for the final stage of sword honing/polishing using a jnat finisher, and demands a very fine finishing/polishing stone. After sword making was outlawed in Japan, the technique transferred to Kamisoris. It consists of five edge forward strokes followed by three spine leading strokes, and is completed with one edge forward stroke. Now in all fairness the edge was already great, but the mug shave that followed was “divine” to quote a green tea drinking, highly experienced, limey member (
@palmolive fox) of our wet shaving fraternity. Just an incredible, buttery smooth, two and a half pass mug shave was the result that left yours truly in a state of blissful
velveteen facial smoothness.
I am fortunate to have collected all three handle colors of the Durham Enders Speed Shaver, although it did take three years to locate the final butterscotch handled example. My first Durham Enders Speed Shaver was the green handled model which I selected for this morning’s noggin shave. My friend, Jeff (
@jmudrick), our intrepid Shave Den Safety Razor historian, put me on to these beautifully crafted tools as superb noggin shavers. His credibility couldn’t be any better, since he also, along with Ryan (
@PLANofMAN) through his writings and exhaustive thread knowledge at the Den, introduced me to my beloved Shake Sharps and the two DE blade stacking method for their optimal use. In any case two ATG passes with the Schick Proline B-20 injector adapter-equipped Speed Shaver left your happy narrator velveteen smooth from neck to noggin.
RAZOR: Filarmonica Novodur 13 (Mug), Durham Enders Speed Shaver (Dome)
BLADE: Schick Proline B-20 Injector Blade Adapter
PREP: Cold water rinse followed by a heavy scrub with Argan Oil
BRUSH: JT LE Sapele/Resin Handled Omega Pro48 Boar Knot
SOAP: Mitchell’s Wool Fat
POSTSHAVE: Cold water wash with brush squeezings followed by a rinse with Humphreys WH. Finished with Royall Lyme AS/Cologne.
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