CyiDev's Shave Journal

If you don't do 5 passes with a DE, you shouldn't do 5 with a straight... Other than that, good going!

Shave #6

Stropping: I was able to go quicker and got the motions down a little more fluid. I rotate my wrist more than I did before. Before I used to just roll the razor on my fingers, if I rotate my wrist and not flip I am able to get an even and smooth roll. I still don't count since it seems to distract me more, I am kinda guessing at what my numbers are but they seemed like 10/40 pre-shave and 15/60 post shave.

The Shave: I did 4 passes today WTG, XTG, ATG, ATG. I also did a final pass with my DE to get BBS - which is a must for me. I got BBS on my cheeks and almost BBS on most of my neck, upper lip and below my lip. My chin and the same two spots on my neck still did not get smooth like I want. I am not quite sure why my chin is giving me problems since it is not a angle issue. My neck is a angle issue and actually requires me to on the final pass of my DE go at it from 6 different directions to mow it down. The area I am talking about is 1/2 inch from my adams apple on each side, about a inch in size. I did get bit by the razor today pretty decently in fact. 1/2 inch in size and it bit in deep enough to draw slow blood. Aside from that I feel I am making even progress until something just clicks my chin and neck will be my difficult areas to make progress on. I have also stopped using my Alum bloc in favor of using styptic only on the areas where I had any blood coming from. I started doing this yesterday and it worked out - but stung a heck of a lot more and longer. I am doing this because with the Alum bloc it would appear to stop the blood but it would slowly form a block spot (blood). So I am putting on styptic to the nicks, stropping the razor, then using a damp towel to pat my face and apply my aftershave.

Edit: I should add that if it wasn't for the razor biting into my neck today with very little pressure, I would have continued to think it is way to dull. It is confusing how the same angle / pass I use on my DE would not mow down the hair on my chin using a straight razor.

Shave #7

Stropping: It feels natural what I am doing but for some reason I think I am still doing it wrong. The sound on both the Linen and Leather are not even during each stroke. The up stroke sounds like I am doing it correctly and the down stroke seems like there is more scraping. I can not tell if this means I am doing it wrong or just naturally different. I would think that they should sound similar. I may try recording it tomorrow to see what everyone thinks.

The shave: 4 passes WTG, XTG, ATG, ATG. My mustache area is easy for me now and I got BBS there, both cheeks, and the center of my neck. My chin and both sides of my neck are still very stubborn and I am sort of getting put off by being unable to get a even shave there. It is weird because I can do a 2 pass shave with my Aristocrat and have BBS but 4 or 5 passes and my Straight can't even come close to my worst DE shave in these two areas. Every weird angle I try to come at it I end up getting a nick. I finished up my shave with my Aristocrat just to keep my BBS. I'm not giving up on the straight razor (I know it takes time) I am just not happy that I made 0 progress in those two areas.

On a DE the razor is bent in the head unless you shave with a Pils where the razor sits flat. So if the head is at 30 degrees to your face, the actual cutting edge of the blade may be at 15.

When you strop, the angle of your wrist should not change much at all, with the flipping of the razor being done all with the fingers. That way the razor will always be on the strop the same every lap. If you keep altering the bend in your wrists on every lap it will be difficult to get a repeatable stroke.

Seraphim's Razor Cam


Or if you become a professional barber...

In either case you can see the wrist stays relatively locked.
Sounds like you are well on your way!!

It still sounds like pretty good progress. You'll figure it out in due time, you have to keep trying different angles and motions (scything) to be able to get the stubborn areas.

I was reading that a angle in these areas like say 40-60 may be needed. Especially on the chin. Any thoughts on increasing the angle? I know I will have a higher risk of cutting myself so more caution would be needed.

I really don't know, I still have my razor fairly flat in those areas. What I do is use more of the toe than what I do on the flat surfaces.

Hmm I will try it tomorrow night when I shave. My face still feels really smooth and I want to try and map it tomorrow to see what direction my neck grows in. Wid what is your take on my blades sharpness? I think that it is sharp enough since it is able to bite in accidentally on almost every shave. The only reasons I feel it may not be sharp is that my chin hair just laughs at it and I wonder if my stropping could have dulled it.

I couldn't begin to tell ya that without looking at it.

CyiDev said:

Hmm I will try it tomorrow night when I shave. My face still feels really smooth and I want to try and map it tomorrow to see what direction my neck grows in. Wid what is your take on my blades sharpness? I think that it is sharp enough since it is able to bite in accidentally on almost every shave. The only reasons I feel it may not be sharp is that my chin hair just laughs at it and I wonder if my stropping could have dulled it.

Click to expand...

If your blade is cutting quite easily through about anything that it comes across, most likely you're pretty sharp. Incorrect angles and such will give it a feel that it's dull - if you're having trouble on your chin, a tricky spot for angles anyways, you may want to adjust your angle a few different ways to see if you can get it to cut a bit easier. That might answer your question there.

Ok so it has been about a week since I posted here. My edge on my razor was damaged by some carpet so I waited for my 2nd razor to come. I took both of them on the 8th down to Wid, he honed both of them the new one was touched up on the Jnat. My one that was damaged had the bevel reset and finished on his coti. He stropped both razors and during the entire process he pointed out that my strop was quite different. After noticing how nice his strop was we looked into it further and he pointed out how my strop was the inside of the animal. I went ahead and picked up some sand paper because I remembered Luc mentioning it can be used to restore a strop. I have a Illinois 827 strop for anyone who is curious, after posting a thread on here Tony Miller said that it is a pretty decent strop it just needs to be sanded down. After I found the correct threads discussing what to do, I went ahead and got my sandpaper from the garage I just bought 400,600 and 1000 grit wet/dry sand paper. I started with the 1000 and just accepted that the "Russian Leather" stamp was going to go and was actually quite willing to accept it would be garbage by the time it was done. I dry sanded the entire thing, I wiped the strop back and forth on my jeans several times to get the fiber off of the strop between paper changes. The sand paper needs to be changed a few times or the fibers stuck on the paper will dig into the strop while sanding it causing more work. By the end of the night I had a strop that was similar in texture both WTG and ATG. I stropped my coti razor after Shave #8 with it and it was close but not quite where I wanted it to be so the morning of the 9th I looked around for more information on it and discovered someone who shaved their strop. After being this far into it I figured I had quite a bit of strop left before I could really cause damage, Aristocrat and a Polsilver w/ woolfat gave it a nice close shave. I went ahead and attempted to shave it with the 400 grain sand paper and this kind of took me a step backwards. Do not attempt to sand the strop while it is wet, some moisture is ok but when it is pretty wet it really causes the fibers to clump together and cause more damage. I took it into the bathroom and washed out all the lather and used a hair dry to dry it up. The color changed during this time and was the only indicator that it was drying but not overly dry to remove the oils. I went ahead again and worked through all the grains and hand worked it for several hours. My strop now feels identical in both directions and feels pretty close to how a strop should feel. The surface is not 100% smooth because I do not want to over sand it and figure over time it will smooth out even more. Both parts of the strop was really stiff and difficult to use prior to doing all of this. The leather strop is exactly where I want it. I took my linen part and tried working it and even soaked it in hot water, worked it, hand washed it with fabric softner, rinsed it and work it again. It slightly softened but is no where near as soft as I want it. I will take a picture of it and post it up after I write about Shave 8 and 9.

Shave #8 Like I said this was my same razor I have used from the start, it just now has a new bevel set and finished on Wid's coti. He did a really nice job and spent a good amount of time on this razor alone. I believe it was a little over a hour to take it from chipped edges to coti edge and finally stropped. We opted to do this on the coti since I have my newer one he did on the Jnat. I did WTG, XTG, ATG, ATG and the edge was smooth to the point that it did not really cut me. I had very minimal irritation from it and my same problem areas still persisted so I finished with a quick DE pass. The razor performed better than the shapton edge because it did not irritate me as much as the shapton did. It did sort of jump / stutter a little but I believe this is because I had 2 day growth I was shaving off, I will be giving the coti a 2nd chance on Shave #10 (tonight). I stropped the razor on the first inital sanding of the strop only after I shave since Wid stropped it prior to me shaving with it only a few hours before. The strop performed much better except It was still stiff and did not really flatten out correctly when pulling it tight. This led to the down stroke having the edge not always touching the strop. The same thing occurs on the linen. I tried stropping with a board under my strop and it corrected the issue.

Shave #9: This was last night at 2am, I stayed up late trying to get Jupiter in the telescope and focus it so my son could see it. I took a little longer prepping today simply because of how cold I was outside. I really worked a nice lather with Wool fat, first getting the initial dense lather then adding more water and let it break down and rebuild until it became the right consistency. I shaved with my new razor and Jnat edge and it was both sharp and smooth. So sharp that I actually nicked myself and never even noticed. My passes were WTG, XTG, ATG, ATG and a final DE ATG. I had no irritation aside from the minor nick which was entirely my fault. I was trying to get at the neck hair near my adams apple and was really pushing my luck. The razor did not skip or stutter at all and only encounter minor resistance in my first ATG pass of my mustache area. There was a huge change on the razor compared to my first, I got a closer but not BBS shave on my chin. I really liked the Jnat edge. I stropped the razor on my "finished" strop. The linen side performed pretty good after I worked it out. The leather side had a more significant difference. I swear this strop really produces a identical sound now and is buttery smooth in both directions. I was able to pickup speed and did close to 80 strops on it using lighter and lighter pressure on the last 20.

Overall Wid did an excellent job on my razors and I really appreciate the time he put into it. I would recommend anyone with a Illinois 827 to at-least consider sanding it if they are having performance issues.

Alright so Pic 1 is an overview shot of the entire strop to show its overall condition. Pic 2 and 3 shows the grain pattern of the strop and anyone familiar with it may notice there is no fibers present. Pic 4 shows the "Russian leather" logo after it has been sanded down, it also helps show the final finish the strop has because of the glare it casts back. It originally had no glare and looked more like suede than leather.

It was very nice meeting you too. I can see you, like me, prefer the Jnat edge. When you get a chance we can fix that in no time. Ya just have to keep at it and the shave will get better and better with each passing shave.

Sorry it took me a while to post this here. Thursday we had some pizza and everyone knows what goes good with Pizza! Needless to say I will just pretend that shave never happened. The coti bit me and there is no question in my mind that it is sharp, perhaps sharper / less forgiving than the jnat edge. 2 inch long mark on my cheek apparently I didn't feel the "landing" of the blade. I went ahead and finished with the DE since it didn't require as much care and immediately grabbed the styptic to solve any issues.


Shave #10

Stropping: I got some 2000 grit sandpaper from autozone and went to town on my strop again and this really brought it to the exact smoothness that I wanted. It still has drag on the blade but it feels like a natural drag that would help maintain the blade. It is perfectly even and I did 15/60 on it right before my shave simply because I was stropping it earlier to test the strop and did not want to over do it, especially on the linen. Post shave I did 30/60 and I am pretty happy with my progress on stropping. I do have a few wood working ideas I am going to try on Sunday to see if I can make a better holder for the strop. The weight of the leather strop pulls down on the linen and the linen pulls down on the leather strop when they are in use. This ends up making the strop twist since they are on the same clasp so I am going to try some balsa wood and make two separate clasps to hold it.

The Shave: This was a true shave finished until the end! This happened just last night on the 11th and I used the coti again. I gave the coti a fair chance to hold up against the jnat and did the same prep / cream (wool fat). I did change the amount of passes again for two reasons to only 3 passes WTG,XTG,ATG. I was not benefiting from a 4 pass shave and really felt minimal difference between pass 3 and 4. I cheat anyways most of the time and use a DE to do a 5th pass to ensure I get BBS. I got a decent weeper on my upper lip on my ATG pass and oddly enough I pretty much did it to myself because I tried to do only 3 passes. My 1st ATG pass normally isn't fully ATG because I use a diagonal motion(upper lip only gets this motion, chin gets a stretched face and sideways motion) to make my final ATG pass on my upper lip and chin smooth. My chin came out a little scruffy since it did not get this motion either, so I guess my 4th pass truly does provide a benefit. T

Tonight I will use the coti again and do a 4th pass and no DE to follow up so I can see how it goes. Tomorrow night will be the jnat for anyone who is curious.

Glad to here you are making progress. The Coti and Jnat edges are similar to me with the Jnat being a keener edge but yet still as smooth as the Coti.

The jnat was sharper and really got me a closer shave than the coti. I made a quick mockup of my strop holder tonight. Worked pretty good and actually outperformed the metal clasp on the strop. I picked up some Aspen wood at Menards. I'll wait to take pictures until I make the two tomorrow and stain them.

Shave #11

Stropping: I really like the way my test version of my strop "clasp" came out. So everyone knows what I am talking about it is the metal part of the Illinois strops that I replaced. The weight from the 2nd strop was making the strop I was trying to use twist a little. The 360* rotation of the part that actually hooks to the wall didn't help either so I will post up the finished product today after I make them (may take till tomorrow if I can't pick the right stain color). I did 20/60 on both pre and post shave and had no problems at all.

The shave: I used the coti edge again and did 4 passes WTG,XTG,ATG,ATG w/ no DE touch-ups. I didn't nick myself or draw blood at all but I still did not get BBS on my chin or my neck. Its kind of funny I do not feel the hair in these areas as being any longer or stiffer than the rest before I shave. Once I shave it seems like I ask myself was I really that "scruffy"? I tried to increase the angle on my chin and inadvertently increased it on my entire last pass so I got minimal razor burn on my mustache area and neck. Nothing visibly red just stings a little and my upper lip kind of poofed up for a half hour.

CyiDev said:

Shave #11

Stropping: I really like the way my test version of my strop "clasp" came out. So everyone knows what I am talking about it is the metal part of the Illinois strops that I replaced. The weight from the 2nd strop was making the strop I was trying to use twist a little. The 360* rotation of the part that actually hooks to the wall didn't help either so I will post up the finished product today after I make them (may take till tomorrow if I can't pick the right stain color). I did 20/60 on both pre and post shave and had no problems at all.

The shave: I used the coti edge again and did 4 passes WTG,XTG,ATG,ATG w/ no DE touch-ups. I didn't nick myself or draw blood at all but I still did not get BBS on my chin or my neck. Its kind of funny I do not feel the hair in these areas as being any longer or stiffer than the rest before I shave. Once I shave it seems like I ask myself was I really that "scruffy"? I tried to increase the angle on my chin and inadvertently increased it on my entire last pass so I got minimal razor burn on my mustache area and neck. Nothing visibly red just stings a little and my upper lip kind of poofed up for a half hour.

Click to expand...

Hang in there! We are all learning at different speed... It took me ~70 shaves to get the right BBS (not a patchy BBS). It will get better. Sounds like you are doing well at the moment.

Alright everyone so here is what I made today. The wooden pieces really made the strop function exactly how I wanted it to. Each strop is now separate and the middle ring is simply there so I don't have to fuddle around with 3 things in my hand while changing strops. Ideally I could modify the command hook or make my own wall piece... Now that I think about it I may do this tomorrow. This really solved my problems with the Illinois strop cupping in the center and twisting at the ends. The wooden pieces on the leather ended not being perfectly flat but they still hold the strop perfectly flat. The Aspen wood used was already cut to 2.5 inches I just had to cut it to length for each side, drill it, sand it and use a picture frame holder on each side of the strop. The "links" are from key-chains. Some side notes about the wood just-in-case anyone decides to try this, the wood needs to be taped with painters tape or it will splinter when being cut. The wood also refused to hold any stain / polyurethane because of how dense it is, it held some but the result looked like a child colored on it with a crayon so I opted for the natural color.

Shave #12 I decided to go ahead and use the coti edge again because I wanted to give TOBS Sandalwood a go on each blade.

Stropping: 30/60 before and after and I had no problem using the strop. I did give the leather one a quick wipe down to remove the dust from the wood since it was put together in the garage.

The Shave: 4 passes WTG,XTG,ATG,ATG. I used TOBS Sandalwood w/ the coti and on pass 3 I had no bleed and it felt rather smooth on my chin. I believe it was the closest shave to date in that area. My neck was still rather rough so I did a 4 pass shave and on this pass I drew blood in two areas. My mustache area and my neck where I was trying to get closer. Overall it was a pretty decent shave.

Note: I am going to post my JNAT shave tomorrow then cut back on updating this to "milestones" since I am pretty sure everyone doesnt want to read about shaves 14-1000.