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Sunday, August 18, 2024: Sunday Vacation Shave
I shaved, but somehow didn't find to time to post my shaves. The bad weather today may have helped. Anyways, slight irritation (maybe because I had already shaved yesterday). The brush is not bad, but the rest of the setup does not shine in sparking joy.
Have a good evening!
August 18, 2024
Brush: Zenith r/Wetshaving 31mm x 57mm Moar Boar
Razor: J.A. Henckels Friodur 14 Full Hollow Square Point
Lather: Chicago Grooming - AG 1889 - Soap
Toner: Thayers - Lavender - Toner
Aftershave: Chicago Grooming - AG 1889 - Aftershave
Fragrance: Guerlain - Jicky - Eau de Toilette
2 passes. Face lather. Excellent shave. $headless $FriodomRiders #NoStrop
To all of you who honed your straight razors this weekend: Congrats! Especially those who are newer to the honing process. To those who are old hands, I say, "Why bother?!". Get rid of that vintage carbon stuff and get you some of this new fangled stainless! No honing or stropping needed and I (at least) get more (18 so far) comfortable BBS shaves from a stainless straight than I do from a DE blade (10-12 - @sgrdddy@sub.wetshaving.social not withstanding).
[ Ok, admittedly, I've never had more than ~15 shaves on a DE blade. I notice a softening of the edge around this point. The issue is that, once you get your technique down, shaves with a straight razor are much more comfortable than shaves with a manufactured blade. (IMO, YMMV, smoke 'em if you got 'em) ]
It's honing weekend in the HoneMeisterschaft! I.e., the first time since August started participants actually should do something 😅
I have a fairly minimalist honing setup. For instance, despite being tempted on multiple occasions, I have not yet dived into the natural stone finishers. I have a Naniwa 3k/10k Super Stone combination stone, a lapping plate to keep it flat, and a big bag full of styrofoam packing peanuts (actual styro, not the starch-based bio-degradable ones). I also have a Jeweller's loupe, but I'm not using it anymore. That's it.
The 3k side is maybe a bit fine for setting bevels, but with a bit of patience, I've also managed that in the past (even on chonky vintage wedges with wide bevels).
Is partially copied from "Simple Straight Razor Honing" on Science of Sharp, but instead of counting strokes, I rely on how the razor feels on the hone and, most importantly, the @gcgallant@sub.wetshaving.social packing peanut test (here shown on a styrofoam deco ball, but packing peanuts are cheaper and work just as well).
Starting out honing razors, the most difficult part for me was to figure out what works and what doesn't. I'd frequently spend an hour or more honing a razor without palpable progress. I tried to visualise progress using loupes, a microscope lens, etc. Every once in a while, I'd get that glorious edge through trial and error, but the lack of reproducibility was frustrating. At some point, @gcgallant@sub.wetshaving.social shared with me how he uses packing peanuts to test the progress he makes during honing, and it's been the missing link to get reproducible sharp edges. Styrofoam has thin membranes around porous beads or puffs. It's a bit like a tomato in that a sharp knife slices through the skin effortlessly and allows you to make clean cuts, while a blunt knife struggles to cut the skin and crushes the meat underneath. Packing peanuts are like that and make the difference between more and less sharp parts of the edge obvious. Except, the peanuts all feel exactly the same.
Even though a few laps on the finisher would have been just fine for refreshing today, I decided to do the whole process.
I soaked the water stone for a bit over ten minutes. It hasn't been lapped in a while and looks correspondingly dirty in the water bath.
There were a few dished areas of the stone,
and lapping both sides flat took a while.
With a freshly flattened and soaked stone, I started off by thoroughly killing the edge,
An then rebuilt it with trailing edge strokes on the 3k side, frequently interrupting to check my progress on packing peanuts. At first, progress is very fast and some areas of the edge become noticeably sharper than others. This shows where to apply more pressure and when the edge felt uniformly sharp, I moved over to the finisher side. Same process again, trailing edge strokes and peanut tests until it's uniformly sharp enough to just melt into the styrofoam.
To finish, I stropped on chromium oxide-loaded canvas for a few laps to get any potential burrs of and smooth out any potential rough bits (I only use loaded canvas right after honing, and only clean canvas and leather after that) and test again on the peanut. (The reason for that last test is that some razors I've honed for the first time got really sharp on the peanut test, but after stropping would feel horrible. The edges would just crumble during the first shave. This can be remedied by killing the edge and start over from a coarse stone to cut away the weak surface steel).
Now I'm not sure how it went for everyone else, but my blade did not really need a refresh of its edge yet, so I wasn't sure what to expect from the refresh. Unsurprisingly, there wasn't a huge difference. The fool's pass did feel noticeably smoother, and that's always nice.
Great shave today, and I'm looking forward to reading all the honing posts today. Have a great Sunday!
Nice write up. I did something similar the other day and unwrapped a new DE blade, placing it carefully in my razor. I disposed of the old blade by putting it in my blade bank.
The learning curve for getting a sharp shaving instrument is slightly less intimidating with a DE 😎
😆
AA24 - Day 18
Brush: Zenith Multi-Color (2006 XSE) 21mm Unbleached Boar Knot
Blade: Gillette Platinum [18]
Lather: Stirling Soap Co. - Varen - Soap (Mutton Tallow)
Post Shave: Stirling Soap Co. - Varen - Splash
Fragrance: Hermès - Terre d’Hermès Eau Intense Vétiver - Eau de Parfum
Tags: $ShepherdsofStirling $RawHoggin $Discord
August 18, 2024
$Discord
$ShepherdsofStirling
Progress Album
Welp, yesterday I purposefully loaded "lightly", and today I purposefully loaded "heavily". Somehow I used less soap today compared to yesterday -- 2.2 grams with the heavy load, and 2.6 grams with the light load. Who knows!
