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

Figuring out the Escher

Months after getting this very expensive, and highly sought after finishing stone, I am figuring out how to use it! Every time I have tried in the past it not only hasn't advanced my edges but many times made them worse!

I tried it with medium thick slurry, with thin slurry and with no slurry, just on water but nothing seemed to really work on my blades.
Way easier time getting a solid finished edge from my Oozuku or Nakayama stones but I was determined to figure this out.

One big help was this video from Sham, Master Honer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0kLxgkOtM4&feature=g-user-c


Sham's edges are consistently the best I've ever shaved with and it is my gold standard for my own edges. I'm getting closer.

The one thing that this video made very clear to me is that I was using too much pressure on the strokes. I already used the  balance technique as I hone with the stone in my hand but I was just using too much pressure; the finish is to polish the edge, not cut metal. So I backed off and that helped.

But what really helped( and Sham doesn't use this technique) was to apply the dilution method that the Coticule masters use. I start off now with a very light slurry made with either a Blue Green Escher slurry stone or a DMT and make a very light slurry.

Then it's about 20 laps on that slurry and I start the dilution process. Five laps and a finger drop, then four, then three then two, all adding one finger drop of water. Then , I rinse the blade and do another 3-4 laps. Then rinse it all and do between 10 and 20 laps on water only.

This has worked perfectly! Another thing I try to do while honing on this is to do my laps with the same lack of pressure I want to shave with. My ideal edge  shaves me almost effortlessly and I never have to push or put pressure on the beard to get it to shave( when the edge is right). I try to hone with this same pressure too. This has made a big difference.

Got back to my favorite Revisors today, shaved one half of my face with the thumb notch 6/8 and the second with the  regular 6/8. Barely needed a second pass but did it for fun and to touch up a few spots but man it was smooth!

  It's so much fun when you figure things out! Even the Gotta razor got a wicked great edge off this Escher technique yesterday and I had pretty much given up on that blade!

Next up is the Zulu Grey hone that's coming in from South Africa supposedly a finer hone than the Escher. We'll see!

Gotta

Just snagged this awesome 5/8' Gotta from $30! Crazy. They're going for 150 right now and this should be an awesome blade. Sheffield + Soligen

Japanese unicot

Been awhile but i've been honing and shaving religiously, just not posting. Become enamored of the unicot technique for getting that perfect edge every time, just by putting a layer of electrical tape on the spine for creating a micro bevel. the great thing about it is that it works SO consistently.

It's a coticule technique but today I decided to try it with my Jnat stones. this '65 russian has been a pain in the ass and today I realized why, the bevel is REALLY uneven and it probably has a warp to it as well so I took out the cretan hone to do some bevel correction

 dry rubbed the cretan with it's own slurry stone making a powder first, THEN adding a few drops of water to make the slurry. works really well this way.I love this stone, it is SO versatile. It can reset a bevel or take a blade to shave ready. Crazy.
SO lots of half strokes and pinpointed honing to correct the uneven bevel.
 Finished on water just cause it was fun.

Then onto my Nakayama 2

started with soft uchi slurry and circles. then onto chu nagura slurry and X strokes then Oozuku slurry and more X strokes. Things were picking up well and it was getting keener with each slurry change( oozuku slurry stone below)

finished on clean water and X strokes to polish up the bevel as much as possible before moving onto the micro bevel.

Next up the Oozuku stone and tomonagura slurry made with a DMT. I've taken to this method more and more lately as the DMT lets me use the exact stone's slurry instead of guessing which stone- bout or base stone, make the slurry.
30 X strokes here to finish the polish then add one layer electrical tape and re build slurry:
30 X strokes here as well then rinse all and finish with 50 X strokes on pure water.

40 laps on linen 50 on Buffalo strop and 20 on palm:

Shave report;
Freaking PERFECT!  Didn't know if I had over done it but it was a perfect just about one pass shave. Had brought out my Wade and Butcher pure wedge and did use it for the second pass but it didn't hardly pick any hair up!

NICE! Also taped the W&B and did 30 x strokes on the Escher followed by 30 on water and it was as keen and QUIET as could be. Great fun!

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.