Another Honing Session:

Well after some thought, I decided to kill the edge completely and start from scratch. I already knew that I was going to have to perform a massive touch up and since I was going to pull out the old Norton 4/8K combo stone, I figured why not start from scratch and see if I can get it more comfortable than I did the last time which I believe I have. First I started off by doing 100 round trips which was the same as the last time, followed by my usual 40 seconds worth of half circles on each side of the razor. Then my usual 20 seconds, 10 seconds, 10 seconds, 5 seconds and then 10 round trips to clean up and polish the edge a bit. Now here's where things changed a bit. I added 10 stropping round trips on the 4K side and 5 stropping round trips on the 8K side to help make the edge smoother and more comfortable to use and I believe I was successful because I got zero burn after doing this before stropping both razors:

I also changed my stropping routine a bit as well, but this is ONLY after I perform a honing session. Other than that, my usual stropping routine stays the same before and after each shave:

I performed 25 round trips on the scrub leather, then I performed 50 round trips on the smooth leather after each honing session only. Before each shave, I'll be performing 15 round trips on the smooth leather only. And after the shave, I'll be performing 5 round trips on the scrub leather only. That's my new stropping routine for honing sessions only. It's been a good bit since I performed a honing session. I'd have to go back and look at my previous blog posts to determine when I honed both straight razors last. I could have gotten away with a touch up for sure because both razors still had a decent edge on them that was just barely starting to pull and they were becoming slightly uncomfortable, but where's the fun in that ? So if anyone tells you that these Chinese made razors don't hold and edge or are impossible to hone, tell them they're stupid because I don't know if I can get ANY razor sharper than these Chinese made straight razors to be honest about it.