5/8"W & B near wedge shave report

This blade was 95% great yesterday but not 100% smooth. So I put it on the Uchigumori stone on water  for close to 100 laps. Then 20 on linen and 40 on leather and let it rest overnight.

This morning another 20 and 30 and it was PERFECT! Completely sharp AND smooth. Coudn't ask for more. Again, a basic one pass shave. Did a second but it was almost besides the point.

Geo Westenholm Pipe Razor

This was a very troubled razor that  I finally gave up on and sent out to Sham at Razor and Stone to have honed. Sham is a wizard with a razor and stone and he took off A LOT of metal,( as shown in the photo) to get the edge( this is a true wedge) but it is a magic edge. Haven't shaved with it in a few months and didn't want to put it on the Zulu as I know it didn't need it.

Sham finished it on a JNat I believe and after 20 laps on linen and 30 on Buffalo leather I got an easy one pass shave! Beside a quick touch up on some little spots there was nothing left to shave after ONE with the grain pass.

And, as with most wedges it was perfectly quiet. Very nice shave. This blade is at least 150 years old! Crazy.

Ramapo Wedge

ANOTHER perfect shave after 60 laps on the Zulu on water. I think these curved edges work even better on the big square of stone! The tail of the blade is a little too short for me, throwing off the shaving balance but other than that I love this blade!

Tomorrows blade

My newly re scaled mid 1800 Wade and Butcher near wedge. On the Zulu of course. 60 laps on water, 35 linen 40 leather

SHAVE REPORT:

ANOTHER WINNER. THESE WEDGES SEEM TO REALLY LIKE THE ZULU. THIRD WEDGE THIRD HOME RUN. ALMOST A ONE PASS SHAVE AGAIN. SILKY SHARP, JUST HOW I LIKE IT.
TOMORROW THE RAMAPO WEDGE

Supreme Custom Wedge and Zulu edge

Wanted to give my Wade and Butcher 7/8 Wedge a day off so I pulled this baby out of the roll and didn't even test it. Just ran it through 60 laps on water on the zulu then 30 laps on linen and 40 on buffalo leather and let it sleep.

this morning another 20 on linen and 30 on leather and the shave was damn near a perfect ONE PASS BBS! This thing has NEVER been this smooth and sharp. As with most full wedges ( even petite ones) it was a silent shave and there was almost nothing to clean up after the first pass!

The Zulu on plain water is for me, without a doubt, my favorite finisher by far! If I had to choose now, I would pick my Cretan, a coticule and the Zulu as my three favorite stones I could live with the rest of my shaving life.

The only thing missing is if I needed a REAL bevel setter and then I would pick the Chosera 800 but the Cretan does a great job on almost all but the most jacked up bevels. Now, which coticule is the question? My Deep Rock one would have to be at the top of the list but the Les Latenuese would be a very close.

My new Cretan is here!

I ordered this from a gentlemen in Greece last month suspecting it was a Cretan hone, although it was advertised as a Turkish Oil stone. I simply love my Cretan that I got from Emmanuel and use it as often as possible.

It's perhaps my favorite stone and I truly believe I would part with my Escher before my Cretan. I know how rare and hard to find these stones are so I jumped t the chance to get another.

And this one is a beauty, too. Darker than my original and it makes slurry virtually with no effort. My original one I have rub the slurry stone on the dry hone to create a powder if I want slurry without using the DMT.

This one is a different story. Here's the top of the new Cretan:

here's the original

the stone on slurry

The bottom of the stone

Used it in a progression on a Henckels and a Dovo tonight and it was,like it's brother, a joy.

We'll see tomorrow but I already am very happy with this purchase.

Revised Revisor Redux

So, not satisfied with the Oozuku edge on the 5/8' Revisor I put it back on the Zulu stone, this time ONLY on water, for 50 laps of X strokes. Stropped it 20 on linen and 40 on leather this morning before the shave and it was perfect!

Crazy.

It seems that my Zulu does much better as a finisher on just water and that the slurry tends to dull it a bit. That's what I first did when I got the stone and it worked great. I even felt the same "feel" to the stone that I first did when I got it, that kind of suction of the blade to the stone and a smooth, glassy slide across the hone.

Hey, whatever works.

Second pass was with my 6/8 Ralf Aust square point which I haven't touched in months.  20 and 30 and it was awesome, Nice to see it holds the edge.

Got this blade to shave arm hair today, a first for me with any knife. I've seen Murray Carter do it regularly on his videos on YouTube but never came close with mine. Until today. I decided to re set the bevel here on the Chosera 800 grit. I didn't use slurry and just got to it. I didn't pre dull the blade but it was dull after a few passes of half strokes!

I thought I totally screwed this great edge up! Instead of using an angle on the half strokes I just lay the blade flat on its side, like a straight edge, like I have seen Carter do. But it wasn't shaving arm hair after that!

Oops.

But then I put it on a BBW side of my Jade coti and used slurry here. Mainly circles into half strokes and it wasn't that sharp after this either. I was still keeping the blade pretty flat on it's side during this as well.

Then I went to the cretan hone with slurry and lifted the edge like I usually do. It got pretty sharp pertty quickly. I actually let the hone dry out a bit with the slurry on it and finished like that. Didn't expect much but the paper test was insane. the three finger test too and then I tried to shave arm hair and NO PROBLEM!!!

I guess laying it flat really did re set the geometry of the bevel and then picking up the back end allowed me to finish on the edge itself. VERY COOL>

Revisor 5/8 re- do

Decided to get serious with this blade and find out if it is the blade itself or my honing.

Dulled it on glass, three downstrokes

1) Chosera 800 grit, no slurry
Re set bevel here with half strokes for 5-6 passes. Looked good under scope. then
 some push strokes into X strokes. Shaving arm hair already good sign

2) Jade marble coticule BBW side with slurry
 Circles into X strokes, shaving hair better

3) Jade marble coti side
medium slurry X strokes only here into dilute. Finger drop for 8-10 X passes then blade rinse then stone rise. Very keen now.

4) Oozuku asagi with tomo slurry
circles then X strokes into dilute.
finish on plain water, 30 laps.

Felt VERY good and hairs were reacting perfectly

30 laps linen 50 laps leather, 30 palm

SHAVE REPORT:
Definitely better than yesterday but not perfect. Much smoother but I think something's up with the blade itself. 50 laps on the Zulu today with water and shave with it tomorrow.

6/8 Revisor touch up
50 laps on water on the Zulu and it was GREAT! I am starting to think my Zulu works better on water than on slurry. Just one pass today ( I hardly had any beard from yesterday's shave,lol)

Revising the Revisor

As planned, I deconstructed the Revisor tonight. After checking the bevel ,( perhaps for the first time, really understanding what I was looking for) I realized that this was a factory bevel and definitely needed re doing. I started with the Cretan hone and slurry with half strokes for a lot of laps.

turning grey and definitely cutting metal( but as usual with that great Cretan mirror polish, even at 3 k!) I kept refreshing as I went to push strokes and circles. adding water when needed to keep slurry from getting too thick. then onto X strokes and a dilucot to plain water and 50 laps on rinsed stone and plain water.

cutting leg hair now no problem.

onto my Deep rock coticule and fairly thick slurry. Start with circles for 6-8 laps then onto some push strokes and then X strokes. Probably 70 total laps. Then onto dilucot and finish with 50 laps of X strokes on plain water ( rinsed coti).

Onto Zulu  with 1200 DMT slurry. Circles to start for 5-6 laps then x strokes with no dilute for 20- 30 laps. Then start a dilute by dipping blade in cup every 10 laps. Then fully onto pure water and 50 laps here dipping into water every 10

30 on linen 50 on leather and the tests look great. we'll see tomorrow.

SHAVE REPORT;

No go. Still 'sticky' for lack of a better term. Did 40 laps on the escher on water for the second pass ( after using the boker) and that didn't help that much( although it did a little). Going to put it on the JNat later today. Otherwise I will chalk it up to the blade itself.

On the other hand the Boker was stellar with the strop and still silky smooth.

5/8" Revisor vs Boker Edelweiss Zulu: water vs slurry finish

Today's experiment: hone a pair of new ( not vintage) 5/8" soligen blades, one a Revisor and one a Boker Edeweiss on the Zulu but with different techniques

The Revisor was done starting on light slurry for 30 X strokes. Then diluting every 10 X strokes by dipping the blade in a cup of water until I got to 60 laps. Then rinse blade and stone and finish on plain water for  another 40 laps.

The stone never developed that kind of suction action it did the first day where the blade started to stick to the stone. It actually hasn't had that great of feedback the last two days either, although the edges were the same.

With the Boker I built the same thickness of slurry and then did 50 laps with no dilute. Then  dilute every 10 laps finishing on very light slurry. But no water finish. We'll see how if there is a discernible difference tomorrow's shave and if so whether going back to water will  change it on the Boker.

I also played with the Zulu and my Japanese Santoku kitchen knife. This is a very easy blade to sharpen and I've been using my Cretan hone with slurry here to great effect. Today I built a pretty thick slurry and did circles  to hone it. Man it sharpened up FAST! Sliced through the paper like it wasn't there. Nice. I love this knife. I just remembered that I ALREADY put the Santoku on the Zulu last week. Of course I used it a bit but it STILL got sharper with today's honing. Crazy blade, crazy stone.

Between my cretan, a coticule and this stone I might never need another stone :)) The Escher is great as is the Oozuku but this is something else. Of course I'm not getting rid of anything either:))

SHAVE REPORT:

Well that was interesting,and unexpected. I forgot which blade I finished on water and which on slurry, which was good for the experiment. I started with the Revisor which was not as keen as I expected, so I thought I had finished it on slurry. Then I went to the Boker and it was very "zulu" like  so I thought that was the water finish.
Exactly the opposite!
The Revisor was good but not that silky smooth like the Boker. Have to put the Revisor back on water to see if that fixes it. It could be the blade too.

Zulu vs Wacker 1/4 Hollow, Flaschner 5/8

Got an awesome Herbert Wacker 1/4 hollow from a friend to test on the zulu.

This is one beefy blade and I had honed it a few weeks ago to about 90% of perfect. Here's the opportunity to finish the job.

Built slurry with dmt 1200.
35 x strokes on slurry, no dilute
finger drop dilute for next two 5 laps
dip blade every 5 laps after that to 70
rinse blade and stone  30 more laps
40 on linen
50 on english bride 30 on palm

this will be the first shave test tomorrow. hair tests look excellent,quiet. I always like it when the hairs fall silently off the limb :))

Next up my vintage 5/8 Flaschner

Now this will be an interesting test. the edge was already excellent and popping hairs very well very quiet. I started the same way as before but I could tell from the start there was something different. The blade didn't seem to slide and glide as the others have. I did a shorter dilute, about 40 total X strokes and got to pure water pretty fast.
20 laps on water and stopped. It just wasn't feeling right. Hair test was good but we shall see tomorrow. the russian might have to wait.

Now I'm curious about this edge.
I"ve heard  that Flaschners blades are Fridour ( swedish steel ) blanks which are VERY hard, and probably stainless. I've had this blade for two years and there is NO corrosion at all. It doesn't say stainless but acts it.We'll see tomorrow.


SHAVE REPORT
wow wow wow wow wow. and wow!

All three blades were amazing! Silky smooth and effotless shaves. I come closer to just needing one pass with this edge more than anything I have ever used!
The Wacker was perfect and so was the Flaschner. And the russian too, which is no surprise as these blades take edges better than almost any blade I have. The AK-47 of razors for sure.

The interesting thing about this Zulu hone is that  the edges it gives is like a coticule in it's forgiveness in cutting you, BUT it's way sharper. Could be the perfect edge. Really.

South African Zulu Grey Hone

This hone, carved out of a guy's backyard in South Africa is all the rage in straight razor shaving circles right now, with people saying it's as good as the fame Escher Thuringian stone as a finisher. Since Escher's can run $400- $1000 and this is just $100 I got one.



It took 2 weeks longer than expected to get here while all the while I had to read of all the great edges it was producing for others. I have had 4 blades honed on this stone of late by Stefan of SRP and they are as keen and smooth as any edge I've shaved with.Even as I get my act together with my Escher as well.


It came so well packaged I almost didn't want to open it. :)) But of course there was no choice


It is a seriously dense, heavy stone that was lapped perfectly flat and smooth. It felt glassy to the touch. Michael, the owner really took his time with this.

He also realizes this is perhaps a new classic finishing stone and took the time to provide extra labels to adhere to the bottom of the stone. Just like they did in the old days.

I put my 5/8 tonsorial gem that I've been playing progressive honing with the last 3 days going from  a coticule water edge to a ch12 k to the Welsh Thuringian to see which stone did what. The order I  honed them in was the correct order of keeness. The C12k was sharper ( but not smoother) than the coticule and the WT was sharper still.

Then I got this baby and made some slurry and did 20 X strokes then started to dilute with single finger drops every 5 laps until I hit 40. Then dipped the blade in a cup of water every 5 for another 20 X strokes.

Then rinsed all and did another 30 laps. The stone gives great and immediate feedback; you can feel the stone the entire stroke and it seems like the blade likes the stone. That's the one consistent thing I've heard about this stone from all the honers, this stone seems to not discriminate against different types of steels and is easy to use.

It sure feels that way and it's a pleasure to use. Slide and glide on all the differing types of slurry consistency, even pure water.
After 20 reps or so the blade started to get sucked into the stone, a sign it had had enough and was ready.
SHAVE REPORT:
This  stone definitely increased the sharpness AND smoothness of the WT stone and this was the best shave I've had off this vintage blade yet. Very keen. I only did one pass this morning and that was plenty :)) A rarity indeed for me.

Today:
Put the 6/8 Gotta and Revisor on the stone with the same protocol. Both these edges were shave ready, I want to see if this advances the edge and, if so,, by how much:

All the hair tests were awesome and I did 20 on linen and 30 on leather, 20 on my palm. Will re strop tomorrow for the shave.

But I still wanted to play with it some more so I put my White Steel Santoku Japanese kitchen knife on it. It too was already sharp off my Cretan hone and BBW. A few sets of half strokes on slurry and it was obvious this thing was WAY sharper! I need a razor as easy to hone as my Santoku! Perhaps a real Kamisori will do the trick. But it was SUPER SHARP.

 So I dulled a 1958 5/8" russian blade to see how fast it would bring back the edge whether it was more than just a finisher.

I built a medium thick slurry and did 5 sets of 15 circles. Again, the contact, feel and feedback from this hone is awesome,you just WANT to hone on it. It pulls you in and it's easy to feel what your are doing. Shaving leg hair no problem.
Wow.

Then push strokes in sets of five for a total of thirty with slight dilute. Edge was keener still. Then X strokes with a finger drop dilute every 5 then 3 laps for another 20 or so. Then dipping the edge every five strokes for another 15 laps. Then 25 on pure water.
Again, the stone started to create suction on the blade so I stopped. Test are great on this as well. This I'll find out Tuesday.

All in all very happy with this stone already and certainly worth the small amount I paid for it!

SHAVE REPORT

Started with the Gotta, 20 laps on linen, 35 laps on leather. Perfect shave! JUST the edge I like, SILKY smooth and sharp without being aggressive at all. Closer to a great coticule than the Escher I think, So light in the shaving, just the barest of touch takes the hair off! Love it.

Did the second pass with the Revisor but really didn't need it, Barely took any hair off at all!! SO  cool. Can't wait to try the Russian tomorrow and play with this stone on other blades as well