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honed and left alone for a while

P

pedalpowersailing

Well-Known Member
not sure if we have debated this before but several months ago I honed 3 old razors - nothing special just ones I had aquired.

After stropping I simply pout them away and left them

Over the past 10 days I have shaved with each one and they were scary sharp

I am wondering was I extremely good at honing these 3 or did the few months rest allow the blade to settle and show its true sharpness

I am now trying to work out whether indeed the passing of time helps?

I really do not think so BUT.......
 
Who knows?

Steel does funny things. All of my razors pass the HHT before my shave. Yet, I observed on several occasions how a razor no longer passes that test immediately after the shave. If I put them away for 24 hours, they always show an improvement of the HHT. I have even laid the hair aside, to make sure it was not an easier hair when I retried the HHT a day later.

But even with those natural restoration of sharpness, I still need to strop the razor to bring it to peak performance again.
If I strop it immediately after the shave, I can also bring the edge to the same peak performance, hence it's possible that stropping completely outweighs the advantage of blade rest. It's practically impossible to figure out.
In the old days, it was believed that blade rest was best in the long run. I never strop a blade post shaving (except for this kind of experimental investigations).

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
I always strop on linen after shaving, just to clean the very edge, I too have heard tell of resting the blade, but I cant understand how or why this would work, steel cant sharpen itself

Regards
Ralfson (Dr)
 
I have experienced, and also heard from others about, similar sharper-after-resting. I have also heard that the commercial pitch for a weekly set of razors had this allow-your-razor-to-rest theme.

I am speculating that increase in sharpness happens from realignment at the edge in the absence of stresses of a shave or sharpening.
 
vgeorge said:
I have experienced, and also heard from others about, similar sharper-after-resting. I have also heard that the commercial pitch for a weekly set of razors had this allow-your-razor-to-rest theme.

I am speculating that increase in sharpness happens from realignment at the edge in the absence of stresses of a shave or sharpening.
Click to expand...

My thoughts as well. I speculate that it partially does the same as a good stropping. Leo De Brouwer compares it with the cellophane of a cigarette pack. If you crush the cellophane inside your hand, once you release it, it will start to restore itself to regain its original shape. Of course it will not reach the original shape, but there clearly is some "memory" to the original shape present within the material.
Leo poses that hardened steel contains a similar memory.
If you flatten out the cellophane by rubbing it with your flat hand, you'll be able to remove the wrinkles even further. And even more if you were to iron it with mild heat. This forced kind of straightening out Leo compares to stropping.
It's a plausible theory, by my estimate. I don't know if there is any advantage in allowing the edge to releases some stresses of its own, before forcing it into shape with the strop, but it certainly won't hurt, and I actually like the tradition behind doing it that way.

Best regards,
Bart.
 
Well there may be some truth in the relaxing back into shape theory, quite how effective that would be I have no idea?

Regards
Ralfson (Dr)
 
tat2Ralfy said:
Well there may be some truth in the relaxing back into shape theory, quite how effective that would be I have no idea?

Regards
Ralfson (Dr)
Click to expand...
Effective enough to be detectable with a HHT. Just try it, you'll be surprised. Of course, a good stropping overrules it all, but that doesn't change the fact that blade rest does something on a noticeable level.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
Hi All,

I can confirm what you notice.

When I first started using a straight razor I used to see this barber who was 86 then and he gave me this advise:

Always keep your razor clean and dry.
You must leave it 24 hrs at least before using it again to allow the edge to recover and stand up again.
If you store your razor with the edge running parallel with the magnetic poles it will speed up the process :huh:
After several shaves you need to let it rest for a week before using so ideally you will need two or three razors.
Stropping every shave won't be absolutely necessary if you do this.

I followed this advise for sometime and it is useful to someone who don't hone their own razors, however a few laps on plain water takes seconds and completely restores the edge.

I started out with a small barber hone and when I went back to him I said my face felt like it was on fire!
He said the best hone for sensitive skin is a belgian yellow stone but I don't know where you could find one of those nowerdays.
God bless the internet and that barber!
 
Isn't it fascinating how the old wisdom blends both myth and empiric science together into one great tradition?:thumbup:

If only out of respect, my blades are granted the 24 hours rest, though not necessarily in the right polarity... :rolleyes:

:sleep:
Bart.
 
Yes I like to honour (and humour) the tradition.

If only out of respect, my blades are granted the 24 hours rest, though not necessarily in the right polarity...
Click to expand...

Me neither, my sense of direction isn't that good! :)
 
Being the kind of person I am, I'd love to see some evidence eg microphotgraphs of edge to see a shape change, blind shave tests, something else? Otherwise we're on a slippery slope to pyramid power, sorcery and hogwarts "swish and flick - razor reparo!"
 
clovis said:
... I'd love to see some evidence eg microphotgraphs of edge ...
Click to expand...

I would not take any of the above as 'evidence', but consider them anecdotes, at best. Even blind shaving tests would have margin of errors that would be too much to be useful here. Until we have ready access to a Scanning Electron Microscope and perhaps an advanced metallurgy lab, I am afraid conclusive evidence will be very difficult.
 
Yes I would find it interesting but as Bart said stropping completely outweighs the effect of blade resting.

If it did prolong the time between honing I wouldn't be that bothered because its no great effort for me to just do a few laps on the coti with water.

I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over no supporting evidence thats for sure :)
 
Karl said:
I started out with a small barber hone and when I went back to him I said my face felt like it was on fire!
He said the best hone for sensitive skin is a belgian yellow stone but I don't know where you could find one of those nowerdays.
God bless the internet and that barber!
Click to expand...

Damn. I have no other words for this.
 
clovis said:
Being the kind of person I am, I'd love to see some evidence eg microphotgraphs of edge to see a shape change, blind shave tests, something else? Otherwise we're on a slippery slope to pyramid power, sorcery and hogwarts "swish and flick - razor reparo!"
Click to expand...

To my knowledge, the only device capable of revealing the effect of stropping and blade rest is a scanning electron microscope. I've been known to inquire what such an apparatus would cost on the second hand market, but even if we could raise the necessary funds, it's not the kind of equipment that you put on a counter top and start using.

But there was this simple observation, that you can make at home. It's called "the HHT". Use the same hair to probe the keenness of your razor at three different times: the freshly stropped razor right before the shave, the same razor immediately after the shave, the same razor 24 hours later. Having done that a couple of times, I know my observations. I don't believe in sorcery, hence their must be something going on that adheres to the laws of physics. Coming up with a possible explanation is called scientific speculation. It has little to do with magic.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
This is the most interesting thread on the subject (resting the blade) that I have ever read. I'm a sceptic but have no reason to disbelieve your observations, Bart. I'm bald as a coot so HHT is not something I use. Is it possible that the residual moisture on the blade is giving the bad results immediately after the shave?
 
AlanII said:
Is it possible that the residual moisture on the blade is giving the bad results immediately after the shave?
Click to expand...

I don't think so, because I always meticulously dry an edge prior to the HHT. (I noticed while watching Gary's recent honing videos that he spends equal care at drying the edge). But if there was a sort of residual effect in spite of our efforts, I believe we would have long noticed that from the HHT's we perform after honing.


Kind regards,
Bart.
 
Hmmmm..Actually this is old and well known knowledge..

To make a long story short:

It was a well known fact that cutlery knives left overnight went "sharper" or at least they felt sharper. This was caused by the slight detoriation of the edge..the edge turns sligtly burry and jaggied as it`s "attacked" by the environment.

BUT after a forthnight or so (max) the effect seemed to reverse: The knives became dull,meaning the aggresivness of the natural environment deterioated the edge. So my guess is that the microsopic "jaggidness" evens out in time and you get a "flat" edge.

Torbs
 
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