WetShaving
This is a community of enthusiasts, hobbyists and artisans who enjoy a traditional wet shave: brush, soap, and safety or straight razor. We are a part of the WetShaving community found on Reddit, Discord, and IRC.
New subscribers welcome!
Please visit our wiki, which is always and forever a work in progress.
πͺ Check out these alternative front-ends for this server:
https://gem.wetshaving.social/ - a nice modern interface
https://old.wetshaving.social/ - designed to look like old.reddit.com
Our sister Mastodon instance is https://wetshaving.social/.
πͺ Track the uptime of our various services here:
https://uptime.splettnet.com/status/wetshaving
πͺ Community Rules
Rule 1 - Behaviour and Etiquette
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Be Respectful. Do not bully, flame, or harass others.
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Malicious comments are not allowed but heated discussion and salty banter is okay.
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Low effort replies and complaints about content will be removed.
Rule 2 - Content Guidelines
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Mail Calls, Simple Questions, and SOTD posts belong in the recurring weekly threads.
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Posts must have sufficient content to generate a meaningful discussion.
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Images, links, or videos must include additional text that summarizes the topic.
Rule 3 - Reviews and Disclosure
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Use [First Impressions] in the title if your experience with the product is limited.
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Use the [Review] in the title if you can provide comprehensive details with enough familiarity to answer follow-up questions.
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Disclose how the product being reviewed was acquired (e.g., PIF, loan, or purchase). If the product was provided to you directly by the maker or vendor free of charge or at a discount, you must disclose this fact even if the item will later be returned to the maker or vendor.
Rule 4 - Advertising
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Vendors are to keep marketing within the biweekly Deals/New Products threads.
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Non-vendors may post topics about products if it will foster a compelling discussion.
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Do not solicit donations or share fundraisers without mod approval.
Rule 5 - Inappropriate Content
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All NSFW/L content must request mod approval and be flaired appropriately.
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Non-shaving related NSFW/L content is not allowed.
Rule 10 - Moderator Discretion
- The rules may not apply perfectly to every situation. The mods have final discretion.
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What I've seen several times when discussing carbon vs. Stainless steel as to kitchen knives (for instance here) is that carbon steel can be honed quicker, to a sharper edge, and retains the edge longer. On the other side, it's more brittle, and rusts if you even think about rain.
I don't know whether that's true, though.
First, the article you linked is a nice high-level introduction. To go deep, though, there's no better place to start than Knife Steel Nerds. (@djundjila@sub.wetshaving.social might find this interesting as well.)
As with most things, the answer is "it depends". Edge retention and toughness (resistance to fracture) can be dialed in to suit a purpose. And there are different compositions of "stainless" to choose from, and different hardening regimes as well.
Honing is very much related to picking the correct abrasive for the purpose. I'm simplifying, but in addition to coarse, medium and fine abrasive material, you also need to consider the hardness of the abrasive. The closer an abrasive is, in hardness, to the material you want to abrade, the longer it will take to do the work you want to do (again, simplifying). The abrasive in Japanese natural stones (silicate) and coticules (garnet) are about the same hardness (Mohs scale) as stainless steel but are almost twice the (Mohs) hardness of carbon steel. So, these stones are well suited to one steel and not as great for another. However, the aluminum oxide in man-made abrasives can cut most steels well; except for the steels with very high vanadium carbide content. Diamond abrasives cut any steel well.