What Straight Razor Have You Honed Lately????

Wilkinson Sword
Alfred Dunhill of London
Fifth Ave New York.
7 day set.

Easter Honing Today.
I honed the Saturday, 5 yrs ago, and today, I got a wild hair and honed the Sunday blade. All the blades were factory fresh, except the Saturday, which I honed previosly. The way I knew this, was that there were zero scratches on either side of the blades. Once put in the Honing handle, or stropping contraption, a fine line scratch is left on both sides of the blade. I need to see about making another leather strop for it. The original one probably rotted away, many years ago.
I did a nice time-consuming progression, on the JNAT, and finished it out on the Escher's Thuringian. It is now popping fine hair, root in and root out, all the way down the blade.

 

Nice set Scott, I’m envious.

 

Thanks Steve.
I seriously need to have a strop made for this thing.

 

Tony Miller might be able to help you out.

 

Thanks Steve.
https://heirloomrazorstrop.com/

I looked the stropping mechanism good, and tried to use a vintage Wilkie Empire strop, made for the self stropping razors. It was too narrow. But, it did work, and flipped the blade the way it was supposed to do. Basically any strop will work, as long as it fits inside the stropping mechanism, and isn't too thick. I have some strops I never use, that I might modify to fit, before I go with an expensive custom strop maker.

Anyone have instructions for an Alfred Dunhill Wilkie? The seller forgot to pack the instructions, and lost them.

 

This week saw more of the same from Dovo

A shorty Barbarrosa and even their usually best offering of a Bismarck new and not shave ready
The shorty was so far off it wouldn't even cut an arm hair..

Had to set up a Boker also which is a bit odder for them to be so far off ...

Honestly I had not looked at prices on these things in years, I got curious about the shorty and looked at some websites OMG when did prices get so crazy ???

 

Glen, I can tell that your wife does the grocery shopping. I like Funyuns as an indulgence, A lunch size bag is now $2.50, and the ingredients are ‘corn meal, oil, salt, and onion powder’.

 

RigaRazor
Made in Latvia
15/16th
1/4 Hollow

Newly acquired. This is a fantastically built razor. Importunely, the edge from the factory had a hard time "Tree Topping" arm hair. I did a few laps on the pasted strop, a few hundred on the Illinois 826 Strop. This brought out the edge, and it was barely cutting hair, root in and out. Barely. This led to a not quite stellar couple of shaves.
So, today, I put a layer of 8.5 mil electrical tape on the spine, marked the edge, and did a few laps on an Escher Thuringian, that @Billyfergie helped me buy, a while back. The bevel was just about the same, if not the tiniest bit smaller. So, off to the stone, putting maybe 50-75 laps on this, with water. Under the Loupe, it looked great, and the bevel was nice and shiny.
75 laps on the Linen, and 100 laps on the Leather. It now silently cuts hair, root in or out, with the slightest of touch, the entire length of the blade. It is much much sharper than when I got it. I will try it out tonight, hopefully.

 

Those Rigas have some really tight grinding ..

I also head straight to my Escher for a finisher on them ...

 

I have two Eschers, about the same size. They are fantastic finishers. I only wish I had a legitimate one around 6+x2+ inches.

 

I suppose that I’d better join the party!

 

Hey Steve, nice looking razor.

 

Thanks Scott!

 

Nice Stone that..Great Edges..Glad You are Pleased with it..

Billy..

 

Very happy. Thank you.

.

 

’Dimanche’ from the Touron 7-day set was up for honing for tomorrow’s Sunday shave. I thought that I’d share how I did this one, and will do the others, since like the Joseph Rodgers Tiffany set, these are irreplaceable. There’s not going to be any wide, ugly, bevels on these.

The first step was to mike the spine and measure the bevel angle. It’s always best to have a firm knowledge foundation before you start removing irreplaceable steel. The spine had no visible wear on it and was an even 0.230” end to end, which likely confirms that the razor had never been used. 0.230” is surprisingly thick, a new Filarmonica 14 is typically about 0.225”. The blade width to where the calipers hit was 0.67” which yielded a bevel angle of 18.9 degrees. This is likely a factory bevel, made with the spine off the hone, so it’s not likely a ‘native’ bevel according to the spine width.

My job here is to preserve the appearance, so first I taped the spine with one layer of 1 mil Kapton (now about 19.5 degrees), Sharpied the bevel and made a few passes to see how the bevel width would develop. It actually looked pretty good but was getting a little wider at the heel, so I went with 2 layers of Kapton, 20.6 degrees. This is more angle than I want, but it’s OK to use an extra layer, then pull one and re-set the bevel later, once the new bevels are cut from the factory bevels.

My progression was a 2k Shapton HR, a 3k Shapton HR, an 8k Shapton HC, and a JNat. I actually started with the 3k and one layer then went to the 2k with 2 layers and back up. Staying with the 3k would have taken a bit longer. The steel is hard and fine grained, there were no edge artifacts from honing at any grit, just a straight even edge, like most vintage French steel.

Success! I’m ready for a Sunday shave.

 

Excellent.

 

Thanks Gents!