I *doubled* the number of shave ready straights in my house today.

I had to say *something* most of you guys can't say anymore..

So, I had a rather pleasant evening. After having a rough shave yesterday, I thought about what a few here said about touching up the edge on my Wiss.. Did a little xmas shopping and picked up three little pieces of 15, 3, and 0.5 micron diamond lapping film at Lee Valley - (I have some better stuff on order). Waltzed over to Lowe's and bought 3 29 cent rectangular white tiles of the same size.

So the razor I chose as my first victim I picked up for $10 on ebay a little while ago. A J.R. Torrey "The Celebrated Hollow Ground". She's not exactly the belle of the ball, but I just wanted to clean her up and see if I could make her shave..

Here's how she got to me:



After a little elbow grease it did clean up a little bit:





So.. after some cleaning up, I set down with the 15 mircron film on a tile.. Water, start slowly working it like
I've seen.. try to shave some arm hair.. nope.. work it.. no shaving.. work it.. wonder if I'm doing this right.. work it.
all of a sudden it shaves arm hair! a little more.. yes it does! I then worked my way through the 3 for a good while,
and the 0.5 micron stuff very lightly for a bit.. All told about 2 hours start to finish from cleaning the razor to honing it.

20 laps on CROX balsa, then 20 laps on Red Red balsa.. then 80 laps of stopping on the leather...

So then I sort of stop and wonder if this is really a good idea.. I'm a rank amateur and I'm going to put that thing, that
I just think I sharpened, on my face... hmmm..

Hop into the shower and take a nice long hot one. Lather up the proraso green..



Look Ma! It Shaves! It really Shaves! (I had a Matrix moment in front of the sink.. "I can Hone Razors!")

Had a wonderful shave with it. I'm very very pleased with myself. Thanks to everyone who has posted all the
stuff here that let me get that far!

Very well done! And another one falls into the depths of the honing rabbit hole.

That's quite well done!

And still, despite your comments, it's a nice razor.

I like how you cleaned it up, and respect an aged piece showing some of its age.

Congrats on on the hone. It's a good feeling, isn't it?

Boom!

Good for you! Now the hook is well set...

One side note though, you mention showering and shaving. My shave ritual is almost always preceded by a shower. But I NEVER shave in the shower. Slippery hands and straights don't mix and there are quite a few things the blade passes on the way down, should I inadvertently drop it. Just sayin..

congrats !! i remember after finally getting a razor honed where i wanted to be i thought i had it licked !! so i went ahead and reset bevels on everything i owned , logged everything in and honed about 40 razors !! thats when i realized not all took the steps the same ..lol..

Looks great!


I think Mango is also trying to double his razor collection every two days as well at the rate he is going....

Congrats. Sounds like you have acquired a new skill.

KW Driver said:

I like how you cleaned it up, and respect an aged piece showing some of its age.

Congrats on on the hone. It's a good feeling, isn't it?

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Thanks - even though it's not really a collectable piece, I didn't want to just take all it's character away from it.. just make it do what it was meant to do again..

And yeah, it's a pretty good feeling..

Seraphim said:

Looks great!
I think Mango is also trying to double his razor collection every two days as well at the rate he is going....

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Yeah, but Mango's better half is helping with the enabling.. He has one of yours, and that Dorko 1152 she gave him is positively gorgeous.. I don't think I'm in the same league

gooser said:

congrats !! i remember after finally getting a razor honed where i wanted to be i thought i had it licked !! so i went ahead and reset bevels on everything i owned , logged everything in and honed about 40 razors !! thats when i realized not all took the steps the same ..lol..

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Yeah.. i did also hone a boker I picked up. the bevel set on that *much* faster than on the J.R. Torrey, seemed like no time at all and it would just pop arm hairs.

I'll have to find a better sharpness test if I do this much more, or my arms are going to look like a dog with mange with all the shaved patches - of course I might have gone a little bit overboard because I was so pleased when I the razor shaving hair...

phat said:

Yeah.. i did also hone a boker I picked up. the bevel set on that *much* faster than on the J.R. Torrey, seemed like no time at all and it would just pop arm hairs.

I'll have to find a better sharpness test if I do this much more, or my arms are going to look like a dog with mange with all the shaved patches - of course I might have gone a little bit overboard because I was so pleased when I the razor shaving hair...

Click to expand...

You might want to consider the Doc cherry tomato test. Then you get to eat the test subject.

Very nicely done. I like the look of that razor, to be honest - classical, almost.