One of the things that I love about the straight razor hobby is the fact that I can take ANY dull razor and take it all the way to shave ready. So if someone sells me a razor that isn't quite shave ready, I couldn't care less because I'm independent and don't have to rely on anyone else. I also went with my friend Anthony Esposito's method. It's fast and it works each and every time regardless of the razor or what shape its in period:
First I reset the bevel on the Naniwa Professional (new Chosera) 600 with 40/40, 20/20, 10/10, 5/5 seconds on each side using Japanese style honing (back and forth strokes/half circles) and then I followed that up with 10 round trips to clean up the edge a bit. Once I did my thumbnail test, I went back and did 10 more round trips before progressing onto my Suehiro 1/3K mighty mini combo stone which is one of the smoothest stones I've used to date:
Up next was the 1K side of the of my Suehiro but I had a little accident when I got towards the end of it with both razors. That's blood that you see on the stone:
Caught the edge of my middle finger just below the fingernail which bled quite a bit:
After I got done dealing with my cut, I went with my progression of Suehiro 1K/3K, Norton 8K, Shapton 12K. I took another friend's advice (Adventures in wet shaving, Eric Latta) and used a really light touch on the Shapton 12K which seemed to feel more like a synthetic stone instead of the Japanese natural stone feel I was getting. Speaking of Jnats, I finished on my Shoubandini. First I built a slurry and did 20/20, 10/10, 5/5 seconds on each side followed by 10 round trips to clean up the edge a bit. After that I repeated that sequence with clean water on both razors:
Next I did 10 round trips on the rough leather which cleaned the edge perfectly:
Then I did 20 round trips on the smooth leather to polish and smooth the edge a little further. The shave test will tell me what I need to do next:
Now to let my water stones air dry overnight :
The fabric of my strop was past being shot so I tossed it out. And considering that I can get a brand new strop for what it costs to replace the fabric, I've decided NOT to replace it. So I will be going on a little research binge to find out what strop I want to get. I want a good one that isn't too expensive and that will last. I'm also saying good bye to chromium oxide pastes. I've got stones here and I really don't need it in my opinion.
