Hi, I have a question right away

[Dundee]

Hi there,

A friend of mine on another forum directed me towards Dave's Straight Razor Shaving video course. Now, I have been shaving with a straight razor since 2020, but I never had the chance to learn how from a comprehensive source like this, so I have been trying to relearn. I tend to get DFS shaves pretty consistently, but rarely BBS. Hoping to change that.

One thing I wonder is if my razors are sharp enough. I have never had a new razor or one honed by a honemeister. I started with a Gold Dollar and moved on to some vintage razors I restored. I reset the bevels on all of them myself, and figured I did a pretty good job since I can pass a hair hanging test with them, and get DFS shaves, but I have no way of know for sure without a frame of reference.

But on the topic of sharpness, I recently made a denim strop as Dave recommends in the video series. Before that, I have used a paddle strop work suede kangaroo leather that I won knife a knife sharpening contest. I tried the denim because I thought maybe the slack of a hanging strop would wrap around the edge apex and create a microconvex that would make it sharper. I seem to remember reading an article on Science of Sharp saying this was pivotal for straight razors and thought maybe I wasn't getting that with my paddle strop.

So far however, with the hanging denim strips I am getting somewhat conflicting results. It seemed like it tugged a lot more on my with the grain pass. I thought maybe that was just down to having 5 days growth, but the against the grain tugged way more than usual too. I ended up stopping again in green compound and grain leather, and then my suede kangaroo leather, and it was more comfortable. Yet I thought maybe I had just used too much pressure on the denim, so tried again today, and it seemed to tug the same. However I also noticed it cut my face! Which I haven't done in a long time, and it's making me think maybe it really is sharper off the denim because of that, and maybe the tugging feeling is just because it's actually cutting more into the whiskers than off the paddle strop?

Anyway, hi, and hope to hear some thoughts on this. Thanks.

 

[Luecke3262]

First things first! Welcome to the forum, nice to meet you.

@BarberDave help! Me rub shiny thing on rock.. make sharp enough to scrape hair off face.

Basically, I’m not super eloquent in my honing and stropping explanations because I’m a pretty utilitarian honer. If it works great do it! If the edge sucks, try something else and if nothing works send it to @Bill M to super curve hone it().

It sounds to me like you need to head back to your finishing stone. If you’re hitting CrOx and a denim strop, you should be picking that edge up quit a bit. If it’s still tugging it may need a bit of a rework on the stones or possibly back to the 4k and up. I wouldn’t get too hung up on the denim strip, they are useful,, but not really looked at as a premium stropping material(you should look at firehose, they are proud of that stuff $$$).

Are you loading the CrOx on the denim strop? Also, how many laps are you doing on it? I’m just trying to get an idea of how much you’ve honed the razor on the hanging strop with compound, because eventually you will need to re work the edge a bit after prolonged CrOx use.

 

[Dundee]

First things first! Welcome to the forum, nice to meet you.

@BarberDave help! Me rub shiny thing on rock.. make sharp enough to scrape hair off face.

Basically, I’m not super eloquent in my honing and stropping explanations because I’m a pretty utilitarian honer. If it works great do it! If the edge sucks, try something else and if nothing works send it to @Bill M to super curve hone it().

It sounds to me like you need to head back to your finishing stone. If you’re hitting CrOx and a denim strop, you should be picking that edge up quit a bit. If it’s still tugging it may need a bit of a rework on the stones or possibly back to the 4k and up. I wouldn’t get too hung up on the denim strip, they are useful,, but not really looked at as a premium stropping material(you should look at firehose, they are proud of that stuff $$$).

Are you loading the CrOx on the denim strop? Also, how many laps are you doing on it? I’m just trying to get an idea of how much you’ve honed the razor on the hanging strop with compound, because eventually you will need to re work the edge a bit after prolonged CrOx use.

No, the denim was plain.

Normally my whole process is setting a bevel on a 1k grit Norton waterstone, then I use a 2k-8k Shapton Kuromaku, and finish off of a Naniwa Gouken 12k. Then I strop on grain leather and CrOx on one side of the paddle strop, and plain suede kangaroo leather on the other side. After that it passes hair hanging test and shaves okay, and I just do 25 laps on the kangaroo leather between each shave until it starts to feel like it's not giving as close of a shave and I take it back to the Naniwa 12k.

When I tried the denim strop, I just tried 50 laps on it before shaving instead of the kangaroo leather. After it seemed like it was tugging more, I did 50 laps on the CrOx and 50 on the kangaroo leather to bring it back to what it was before. Shaved with it to make sure it wasn't tugging again, and then tried the denim again the next time with less pressure but still 50 laps. It seemed like it was tugging more so thought, "Huh, it really must be making it duller," but then it nicked me out of nowhere so maybe it's actually sharper and the tugging is from something else?

I may be overthinking things lol But I have been considering buying a hanging leather strop to use instead of my paddle because I was thinking maybe having it slack would be better, and I was using the denim to test that theory before spending the money.

 

[BarberDave]

I would agree with Matt on this, however if you were already using a paddle strop with leather try going back to that. the main reason for a Denim or even Newspaper strop is primarily for beginners to not tear up a 200-300 strop But it does sound like an edge issue, as the denim should allow a good edge from the strop. Again if you are getting good results on the leather and not tearing it up, go back to that. Again the Denim and Newspaper strop are really just for the beginning stage of stropping technique or when in a pinch or traveling with SR's

 

[Dundee]

I would agree with Matt on this, however if you were already using a paddle strop with leather try going back to that. the main reason for a Denim or even Newspaper strop is primarily for beginners to not tear up a 200-300 strop But it does sound like an edge issue, as the denim should allow a good edge from the strop. Again if you are getting good results on the leather and not tearing it up, go back to that. Again the Denim and Newspaper strop are really just for the beginning stage of stropping technique or when in a pinch or traveling with SR's

Would you expect any advantage with a hanging leather strop over the paddle strop?

 

[Spider]

Welcome to the Cadre!

 

[BarberDave]

Would you expect any advantage with a hanging leather strop over the paddle strop?

They both have advantages and disadvantages. Ultimately it is what you are comfortable with. However I have both and use both

 

[TheHappyBachelor]

Have you considered buying a loupe to use when you're honing? I've been using a 60x-120x lighted pocket microscope for years, and it really helped me level up my honing skills. I'm not sure if its allowed to link to an outside product, but if you search on Amazon for Carson MicroBrite Plus 60x-120x Lighted Picket Microscope, you'll find it for about $15.

I found it to be most useful actually, looking straight down at the edge through the scope.

I know that feeling of "How do I know if this is sharp or not?" when you get going with a straight, and I can tell you that having that pocket microscope made things so much easier, because I could actually see what was going on at the edge, and not just guess. It also really helped as I progressed in my honing skills, because it allowed me to immediately see the results of some experiment I was doing, with a certain razor on a certain stone doing a certain thing.

 

[Graybeard57]

Welcome to The Cadre! Enjoy your shaves.

 

[MilkCrate]

Welcome to the forum!

Your paddle strop is fine, it may just be a matter of finding your groove. It can be challenging reading different methods and trying to switch or mix them up. I originally finished on paddle strops using CrOx and FeOx for hyper sharp edges coming off of lapping film.

Currently I use Naniwa stones up to 10k, to an SB Ark and finish on a hanging leather strop. As mentioned above, I found that a loupe or pocket microscope was essential. You should also have a good reference edge on one razor, from a honemeister.