After having to take my 100 to my ILR water stone during the shave, I decided to go ahead & take my other straight razor to the ILR. This took longer to photograph, write & post up than it did to hone 2 razors & to strop them. I used Dr. Matt's under running water technique which is extremely fast & effective. I'm sold on the ILR's effectiveness & speed:
Using a light stream of water, you simply do subtle or abbreviated "X" strokes using the weight of the razor only until the razor gets sticky & nearly stops on the stone:
Once the razor starts to get that sticky, you simply turn the water up slightly & repeat the process until you get the same effect:
Now this is where it gets really interesting. Using either vintage linen such as the fire hose strop that you see below or the fabric side of your strop that you currently have, you do 6 round trips & no more than that:
Then you go back to the ILR stone & repeat the process that you did earlier which is abbreviated "X" strokes until the razor gets extremely sticky:
And once again slightly turn up the water & repeat the same process until you get the same effect that you did earlier:
And that's all there is to it. It's easy to do & stupid fast. This technique also works extremely well with the Belgium Coticules which I haven't tried yet.
