New blade

Just got this beauty on ebay for $26!! Crazy. A 1966  Soligen 6/8 blade that's shoulder less with some work done on the heels Underside jumps and a half hollow. Pretty much all my favorites; plus the scales say Pax as well as the pins are solid. We'll see how it shave tomorrow but I'm betting on good!

Been honing ALOT, just not posting a lot. did a lot of one stone no slurry honing and found it worked pretty well with coticules but not J Nats. Still haven't Mastered the Escher by a long shot but I'm coming up with some pretty keen edges pretty consistently.

THe Jnats seems the most consistent and easy to use and the uchigumori is almost always a winner finisher. Morgans' Asagi the same way.
Can't wait to shave tomorrow!


SHAVE REPORT: AWESOME! NOT ONLY IS IT A GREAT SHAVER BUT THE EDGE WAS EXCELLENT. NOT PERFECT BUT DAMN NEAR. SELLER SAID HE FINISHED ON A THURINGIAN  AND IT FEELS THAT WAY. I WILL PUT A FEW STROKES IN ON MY ESCHER AND SEE HOW IT GOES TOMORROW. LOVE THIS BLADE THOUGH!

Dueling Russians

Decided to do a side by side honing progression comparison with just ONE difference, the finishing stone.
Plus I decided also to shave off the stone, no stropping, to see if I could tell the difference in the finishers.

Both russian 5/8's with hollow ground about the same age 1960's

start:
cretan hone with DMT slurry ( I am really digging this as a low grit stone one day I will try to shave off of it)
 Welsh Thuringian with DMT slurry  also digging this stone with tomo slurry.brings up keeness very quickly

Russian 1 finisher= La Veinette coticule on water
Russian 2 finisher = Escher on water

first off neither was great with no strop. so 20 laps on buffalo then

La veinette russian. strop make a  HUGE difference. typical coticule smoothness.
Escher on Buffalo strop . Also very nice after shaving a bit with no stropping. Couldn't really tell the difference !

will strop them properly today and test again tomorrow.