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)