TimS' shave journal

You have Arko on the way? I hope you have somewhere very open and aired you can store it in. Like... a barn out back, not near the house itself.

Looks like I now have 2 on the way; a local B&B'er wants to trade too. I hope I like this stuff!

So I noted that my 'shave-ready' GD went downhill on my recent trip. Before my trip, I acquired a Jnat (Shoubudani Asagi type 100 from Maksim) and Nagura. I noticed that I really like those razors that have Jnat edges on them over the coticule edges (all done by experienced honers), so I want to see what I can do. I haven't had much success with my coticule (and yes, I realize I haven't put in nearly the time to learn it as I should), so I want to see what an inexpensive Jnat can do. I can get decent edges off lapping film, but the romance of figuring out and using naturals appeals to me. We'll see what I can do.

I did take the GD to the Jnat with Tomo slurry and then water. I pretty much followed the final steps of Mainaman's videos, with slurry refreshing and dilution. The resulting test shave yesterday was very satisfactory--not the greatest, but not much tugging or other issues. A much faster result than I've been able to achieve with either my coticule or Thuringian for touching up.

Later today I hope to dull the GD and take it through the full Nagura progression (again, not knowing anything else, following Mainaman's videos) and see what happens. And then I have a few razors that need touch-up; I'll give those a try this week, I hope.

So I got to try the Arko today--not bad, not bad at all. Either I got a lightly-scented bar, or my sense of smell isn't nearly as keen as some others'. I can vaguely make out the 'urinal puck' scent, but not so much that it turned me off. And so easy to lather. I could see using this stuff pretty often.

I did manage to take my GD through the full Nagura progression after dulling on glass last night. The shave this morning was as good (and better, in some cases) as some other 'shave ready' blades I've received. I won't pretend it's as good as the best edges others have done for me--still a ways to go before getting to that 'squeegee' level of shaving. But, I had success so much more quickly than the serviceable, but not great, edges I've coaxed out of my coticule. I know one very successful honing session does not a honer make (I know I'm working with a brand-new, straight, non-warped full hollow blade), but I'm much more optimistic going the Jnat route than the coticule one. So much so that I'll put my coticule and slurry stone on BST sometime soon.

Next on deck for honing is a Sheffield Middleton. I got if off the 'bay sometime back (not sure what possessed me to do so at the time), and absolutely hated the wood scales it came in. Doc226 recently re-scaled a Greaves for me in gorgeous blonde horn; I asked him to save me the black horn scales off of it, if he could. The scales were too small on the Greaves (the toe stuck out the bottom ever-so-slightly), but they're a perfect match for the Middleton. Since he left the wedge end intact, I only had to pin the hinge. The hole in the razor's tang was a bit wide, so I filled it with epoxy and then drilled it out. It took two pinning attempts to get it where I want (not perfect--I'd like a more rounded head on the peened ends), but it's decent. Now to take it to the Jnat and see if I can replicate the success I found on the GD.

I took the Middleton to the stones last night and this morning. As we say in the military, BLUF: a decent shave from a challenging (for a newbie) blade.
Details:

First inspection of the blade revealed a mild frown. I spent about an hour on my King 1000 last night, first at a 45 degree angle, and then bevel-setting--resulted in a successful removal of the frown and a arm-hair cutting bevel. While bevel-setting, I discovered a warp, so that introduced another level of complexity I wasn't prepared to deal with. Using sweeping x-strokes, I was able to get a bevel that cut hair along the blade's entire length.

This morning I worked through the complete Nagura progression on my Jnat. I didn't get the 'stickiness' to the stone at the level I did with the GD. Not sure if this is attributed to the warp, or a less-than-perfect bevel. Anyway, the resulting shave was pretty good-a little bit of harshness ATG (again, a bevel-setting issue?), but DFS overall. I'm pretty satisfied with myself; I managed to pull off a pretty decent edge off a frowned, warped blade. Not a perfect edge by any means, but one that resulted in a good Sunday shave. I'm really liking this Jnat thing.

So this is turning into a honing diary vs. a shave diary; that's ok--I'm where I want to be with shaving--there's no real value to be gained by me or others by talking about my shaves at this point.

A while back, I noticed my Red Point was tugging a bit, and harsh ATG, so I ran it through a tomo slurry on my Jnat and shaved with it yesterday. No improvement at all--I had to switch razors during the ATG pass, it was so bad. Since I bought this razor months ago shave-ready, and it had performed fine up until recently, this was my first honing/touch up attempt on it. Since the touch up was unsuccessful, I figured it must be one of two things: either the original edge was arrived at with tape, or I needed to go back a bit further in the grit progression. I contacted the seller and found out that it had indeed been honed with tape. So this morning I raised a slurry with a DMT on my Jnat, and ran the edge through a few slurry progressions/dilutions. Just finished the shave, and it was very, very good. It was nice to see that it just needed a touch up, and that I was able to get it with my new Jnat on its own slurry. I still haven't achieved a Jnat edge measured against my benchmark razor, but it was still pretty damn good.

Not sure, but I might run this blade over glass and then run it through the complete Nagura progression next, to see what that gives me. It's the weekend and I have time, so I'll probably try that tonight.

Honing chronicles continued: I didn't run the Red Point through the entire progression as I noted in my last entry. Instead, I raised a slurry with the tomo nagura Maksim provided with my Shoubudani asagi, to see if the results were any different than those from the slurry raised with DMT. On the test shave, I didn't notice anything different. I realize that I'm in the area of probably really fine, if even detectable (at least for me) differences between the two. Maybe after I have more experience I'll run the comparison a few times again to see if I can feel any difference.

Next up was an ugly duckling Olean 'Wedge' I picked out of a passaround box from another site. The thing has lots of honewear, and for the life of me, I couldn't set the bevel on it (King 1K stone) when I first tried a week or two ago. I decided to give the well-worn spine a break and threw some tape on there, and finally managed to get a bevel after a bit of work. Then I ran the edge through the full nagura progression, and test shaved (at the same time as the Red Point test shave). Decent enough WTG and XTG passes, but really rough on the ATG pass. At first I was attributing it to 'harshness' like what I get off lapping film, but in reality, it's just not 'there' yet with regards to being shave-ready 100%. The harsh film edges didn't have the rough/dragging feeling ATG like this edge did--they were just too keen for me, I guess.

First attempt to remedy the situation was last night; I had limited time, so I decided to see what an extended session with tomo slurry diluted through to water would get me. After going through it all, stropping, and then trying a HHT (that's a whole 'nother issue and learning curve for me), I realized I forgot to use tape. So much for conserving my limited time. Went back at it with tape, and barely got the edge to pass a minimal HHT. And the resulting shave showed it: very smooth WTG, OK XTG, bad ATG. Looks like I need to do some more work, but not sure what I'll try next. I'm spending a lot of time searching 'Jnat' and 'Shoubudani' on this board and SRP, hoping to glean some knowledge (and I think I have, considering I can get a shave from a full nagura progression from all the blades I've tried--just not the best shaves yet). Today, as time allows, I'm going to watch a bunch more Jnat honing videos to check slurry thickness, strokes, length of time at each stage, etc. I really want to figure this out. Of course, if anyone is reading this and has some pointers, I'm all ears.

Incidentally, I'll be PIF-ing that Olean Wedge here once I get it to the point of what I consider acceptable shave-readiness. Might be tomorrow, might be next month. It's nothing fancy, but if you want it, it'll go to the first PM once I say I'm PIF-ing it. Not yet though!!

I spent quite a bit of time on the stone last night, with nothing new to show for it--ATG was really rough again this morning.

First I did a koma slurry followed by tomo; tried the HHT and got nothing, so went back to the hone. Did the complete nagura progression, had pretty good stiction at the end, and a barely-passable HHT. No change in the shave. I did watch a few videos last night to double-check my slurry thickness, strokes, etc. The one thing I can't get doing this via video (and I saw it with my coticule) is learning the 'feel' of the process. People are talking about feeling the change in the steel on the stone to know when to move forward, but I don't feel much of anything changing. I'm seeing slurry change color, I'm getting really good undercutting of the slurry, and I do feel the blade sticking to the stone, but that's it. Looks like I need to keep plugging at it.

Tried again last night, but only marginal improvement. Still working on the Olean 'wedge'. Things I changed up: decided to ditch the tape, so I knew I had to reset the bevel. Before doing that, I lapped my King 1K and the Jnat. While setting the bevel, I used the loupe periodically to check on progress (never really paid that much attention to the edge through a loupe during bevel set). What I did discover were some micro chips during the process; not sure if they were there in my previous edge, since I never checked it under magnification. I think the chips were helpful in this case; they ensured I worked that bevel into good metal to get rid of them.

After the bevel set, the Jnat. One new 'feeling' I got that I haven't had previously is that the edge stuck enough to the stone in the Botan slurry that it sort of just 'vibrated' across the stone during the x-strokes. Not sure what that tells me, as the feeling disappeared in all subsequent nagura slurries. By the time I was down to tomo diluted slurry, I did have some 'stickiness', but not a lot.

Test shave was definitely sharper, and certainly harsher. The ATG pass finally improved with this honing (I did lots of slurry refreshes and dilutions), but my face felt raw after the shave. Not sure what that's attributable to either; I'm striving for that sharp, smooth Jnat feeling and not getting it. I'm going to post in the honing sub-forum for some pointers.

Any scratches still visible on the spine wear? I've also started doing all my wedges tapeless. Definitely takes more time but it usually keeps the bevel angle closer to what I like.

pmaster said:

Any scratches still visible on the spine wear? I've also started doing all my wedges tapeless. Definitely takes more time but it usually keeps the bevel angle closer to what I like.

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Hmmm, yes there are. I can see scratches through the 'powder coat' finish from the Jnat. I can't see any on the bevel though. Does the presence of scratches still on the spine wear indicate that I need to spend more time at the lower grits on the Botan? I guess conceptually the spine wear and bevel surface finishes should look the same, but I hadn't thought of that, nor have I heard it talked about before. I'm going to assume since you asked, my spine wear scratch pattern should look like my bevel scratch pattern. Please let me know if this is a correct assumption.

I just pulled out the GD and Middleton blades I mentioned earlier that I tried on the Jnat; neither of them have scratches on the spine like the wedge does (i.e. spine wear looks like bevel), and IIRC, they both shaved a bit better than the wedge did.

I'm home sick today on a raw, rainy day in southern RI--a good day to spend on the hone between naps. We'll see where it gets me.

Well to be honest, I am not sure either if it is directly related, but i strongly suspect it is (I am also constantly discovering the fine arts of honing!). It is just easier to see the scratches on the spine wear than it is on the bevel, if it is a very small bevel. I have noticed that when shaving with a wedge that still has quite a few scratch marks on the spine, the result is rarely a spectacular shave. I don't know how many razors you have, but have a look at a few of them, I suspect most of your non-wedges will barely have any marks. If its just a few very very light marks it doesn't always seem to have an impact though.

TimS said:

Hmmm, yes there are. I can see scratches through the 'powder coat' finish from the Jnat. I can't see any on the bevel though. Does the presence of scratches still on the spine wear indicate that I need to spend more time at the lower grits on the Botan? I guess conceptually the spine wear and bevel surface finishes should look the same, but I hadn't thought of that, nor have I heard it talked about before. I'm going to assume since you asked, my spine wear scratch pattern should look like my bevel scratch pattern. Please let me know if this is a correct assumption.

I just pulled out the GD and Middleton blades I mentioned earlier that I tried on the Jnat; neither of them have scratches on the spine like the wedge does (i.e. spine wear looks like bevel), and IIRC, they both shaved a bit better than the wedge did.

I'm home sick today on a raw, rainy day in southern RI--a good day to spend on the hone between naps. We'll see where it gets me.

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Well, not making much headway. Since I was sick this weekend, I let my beard go for a couple of days, and ran the Wedge and a beater Torrey through the nagura progression up to the koma, but not the tomo. I used both to shave the 2-day growth, and though they both shaved, neither was especially smooth. Then I tried the whole progression on the Wedge again, up to and including the tomo this time. Couldn't see much of a difference. I can get a BBS-level shave from the razor, but not smoothly. Not terribly uncomfortable, just not the most pleasant shave.

I think the next step is to go back to basics somewhat--I think it's Maksim who suggests going up to 8k in synthetics before doing the nagura progression. Maybe if I do some better work at the lower grits, I'll be rewarded when I get to the Jnat. I think I'll go back to the lapping film and give that a try. I eventually want to get a great shave using only the rocks, but I think I need more practice before I get there.

I would suggest make sure your bevel is fully and truly set and the razor is cutting hair easily on your arm before moving to the finer grits. It sounds like you didn't do enough (or the right kind of honing) early on.

Synthetics would be easier to get to a good level of sharpness first if you are having trouble with the Natural stones.

Attila said:

I would suggest make sure your bevel is fully and truly set and the razor is cutting hair easily on your arm before moving to the finer grits. It sounds like you didn't do enough (or the right kind of honing) early on.

Synthetics would be easier to get to a good level of sharpness first if you are having trouble with the Natural stones.

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Yep, that's what I'm thinking. I have set the bevel on this thing repeatedly, but I'm second-guessing how well I've done it. I'm going to bevel-set the crap out of it next time I hit the hones, and see where that gets me.

OK, I reset the bevel (for the umpteenth time on this razor), and did a progression on lapping film and then naguras on the Wedge. End result: same as when I just used the rocks; i.e. a harsh shave.

I did learn something however, and got myself more confused, at the same time. After bevel-setting, I was easily shaving arm hair. However, when I checked the bevel under magnification, there was one 1/2" portion on one side of the blade that still had that cloudy Jnat finish from previous honing efforts whereas the rest of the bevel was very shiny from the King 1K. I took the razor back to the King until that part of the bevel was evenly shiny as well--it actually took quite a bit of time. And then I went through the film/nagura progressions. I'm guessing the unacceptable shave may be related to that part of the blade if it didn't get the attention it needed during the progressions after bevel-set that the rest of the blade did.

Which leads me to my confusion, which I'll post in a more high-traffic thread sometime soon: The general guidance we newbies are receiving for bevel-setting is that all portions of the edge cut arm hair easily. However, I just demonstrated to myself that you can get this result, even if the bevel isn't all the way there. Further, in other threads I read about guys not getting a good shave, and it being blamed on the bevel, even though these guys are getting arm hair shaving on the bevel set. So, besides cutting arm hair, and visual indication under magnification, how can I be absolutely, positively sure I've set the bevel? Or am I probably dealing with other issues here, like blade geometry, bad honing technique, etc.?

Just so we don't lose track: I have had success on this Jnat with Nagura with other blades. Just not on this Wedge. I'll probably PIF it here soon, to give someone else the chance to get a good edge on it.

Time to mess with some other edges...

An update to my little thread here.

I've put the Olean Wedge away for a bit. I've invested way too much time trying to hone that edge to a satisfactory level, and the frustration level is building.
Debating whether to try again when I think my skills have improved, or just give it away and let someone else have a crack at it. My original plan was to PIF
it after putting a decent edge on it, but that's not happening anytime soon.

I have Gold Dollar I've put a decent edge on already; I took it through a nagura progression last night to see if I've built up any skill and could improve the edge.
I did get a better shave, but it's not the best edge I want. Again, I wonder if it's the razor, the Shoubudani, or me. Probabaly the latter.

Next on my plate is a Torrey that I received as a PIF; I may have mentioned it already. I haven't put a decent edge on it yet, so I'll try this weekend.

Finally, I experienced a reminder why one must pay attention when shaving the other day; I got a nice gash on my cheek from my Red Imp on my first pass. I bled like a stuck pig. The problem is, I've already done this twice to myself before with this razor, and I thought I muted the point enough. I'm thinking the glass of wine right
before the shave might not have helped either (it was an evening shave!). Up 'til then, I've had a rule that I don't drink alcohol until after shaving with
a straight. That's what I get for breaking my rule.

Can't comment on your honing attempts, other than to wish you good luck.

I am, however/unfortunately, familiar with the Imps' bite; and that's without internal lubrication. Hope it heals quick.

I picked up a Nakayama Kiita Nashiji koppa from Maksim a couple of weeks ago when he had his big sale. Not that I have any business trying to hone on it, since I haven't figured out my Shoubudani yet, but what the heck, it was on sale, so I'll figure it out.


I had some time to kill this weekend, so I took the Torrey to the King 1K for the bevel-set (I think I may have done so already in the past, but wanted to start fresh). And against my better judgement, I put the Wedge on the King AGAIN. Two things:
-I'm pretty sure I got a good bevel on the Torrey: passed TPT, TNT, loupe, leg hair tests.
-The wedge passed most of those tests too (after a looong time on the King), but I keep seeing micro chips under magnification. I chased those chips for over an hour (make some disappear, others appear). Not sure why--the blade looks just fine superficially. I think I saw a 'crumbling edge' thread somewhere; I'll have to check it out. I'm very close to throwing out this razor, but I keep holding out hope that I'll figure it out.

I honed the Torrey on the Kiita with a Nagura progression, finishing with the same Tomo I got with the Shoubudani (I didn't order a Tomo with the Kiita). One notable thing about the honing session is that I never saw any definitive swarf coloring the slurry. I was constrained by time, and I did want to see what I could pull off, but I also realize that since I never darkened the slurry appreciably, I probably wasn't doing much to the edge. This morning's shave was mediocre--I managed DFS/BBS, but the first pass was a bit tuggy (also, two days' growth), and successive passes weren't particulary comfortable. I think tonight is tree decorating, so next swing at the Jnat probably won't be until tomorrow night. I'm definitely going to spend a lot more time at each step of the progression.

Beautiful stone, Tim!! I just sent you a PM giving you some things to try...hope this helps!!