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Stupid question ? : Maintenance without touch up or paste?

bbr6704

bbr6704

Well-Known Member
Gentlemen,

Today's question is about edge maintenance : Here and there, the advices are to touch up the edge often (5/7 shaves), qith some light laps on a fine stone (coti & water here), or with some paste (green puma most of the time).

Paste is told to make a convex bevel, stone is told to be "overkill" by some members : too strong to be made often.

So my questuion is : could it be possible to maitain an edge with good stropping on canvas & leather, doing regular sessions between each shave, and "power" sessions, maybie every 5/7 or 10 sahves)

Have some of you experienced this? Could this be a good idea, or not, & then could you tell me why?

Thanks.

Bertrand.
 
Hello Bart,

Thanx for your answer and your interstins articke on edge maintenance.

But that's not exactly what i Meant : I've allready read this article : I find it interesting, but I'm not a coti expert yet, and to be honest, not fond of the idea to put the razor to the stone every week or so... (I'm not against, but i find it maybie a bit strong, even if i've allready realised that coti with water doesn't take that much steel away, especiallywoth 30 laps, but I afraid of not mastering mu coti yet, and doing thing worse than they are...)

My question was about something like "only strop maintenance", with regular stropping between each shave (about 20 linen/40 leather), and sometimes a kind of "power stropping" (I don't know, maybie 40 linen / 80 leather...)

Could this be enough to get a good edge maintenance, even if more stropping could be required, but avoiding stone/coti touch up or paste touch up?

Am I clear?
 
you can do just that. marty tells me he is on his 16th shave with a razor that i honed for him, he also told me the edge is still as good as the day it was honed. he's used just cotton plus leather.

gary
i should also add , its not an over kill to use the hone evry 7/10 shaves, it prvents a full rehoning. i and many others like to get the hones out as often as pos, so why not if it prevents a full rehoning, all your doing is gently polishing the edge, for maintanace. Also you realy carn't over hone on a coticule with water. by weekly touch ups your perking the edge before it needs it . i think its a good way to prevent having to go back and use slurry, which for many new guys can make getting th ege back more difficult.

gary
 
My father tells me that my Grandfather (who was a barber) would be horrified if he had known how often I use a hone for retouch. He swears that as a young man he never saw a stone in sight and to his knowledge his dad didn't use paste either.
I have a hard time believing this and think a lot of barbers sent razors out for re honing, or the shaves of yester year weren't that great.
All the same I think the razor is just fine when retouched on a coti, when needed (first sign of dulling/pulling). I dont think it matters if paste is used instead, the only advantage I can see is I prefer the face feel of a coticule edge to that of paste.

Joe
 
You are right Joe.That's the true. The ancient people was completely different than us. My gfather was a straight user.My father too.My gfather had only one razor ,one small coticule (posted in my heritage coticules) and a strop.Was a Cretan red neck man and was shaved once weekly.He was honing one yearly.Was extremely minimalist.My father has two razors,one coticule and one Escher.My father was honing once monthly .Me i have an arsenal of coticules plus my heritage and especially after my singing up in Coticule .be, giving information on members' questions i am playing when i have time.
That's the world my friend.
Best regards
Emmanuel
 
I agree. My pal Chris keeps his razor going for many months, shaving every other day with it. And all he does is stropping on linen and leather. But he does admit that the edges decline, sometimes to a point where he realizes he should have rehoned it a month earlier, once he feels the freshly sharpened edge.

I actually do the same with my razors, but it appears that I'm far more discriminating to my edges than Chris. Hence I touch them up sooner. I also notice a considered difference in the durability of my razors. I write razors instead of edges, because I'm really talking about the blades, not about how they are sharpened. Some razors keep their edge longer than others. There are razors I have to touch-up,every 20 shaves or so, and there are razors that I long lost count on the number of shaves, but certainly over 50.

An retired barber I know, once told me that they had a traveling craftsman coming in every 6 weeks or so, to take care of the razors they couldn't fetch a good shave from any longer. That suggests that the barber or one of his apprentices took care of what we now call touchups, and that more serious resharpening was performed by the traveling craftsman. He also took care of scissors and other sharp utensils. It believe this professions is vanished nowadays. There are industrial sharpening services, nut they don't know a thing about razors. The nowadays traditional shaver, is almost obliged to learn that part of the professions himself, or rely on a befriended straight razor user with the proper skills, to do it for him. In between those sharpening jobs, you can keep the razor going with whatever means at your disposal: at first the strop, and when that no longer revives the edge, the pasted strop.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
yes i remeber gillots in nottingham . they sharpend every thing, from razors to scisors , hedge cutters , just about every thing. they closed down and they were a big company. ever since then jim the barber i no says no one sharpens scisors how they did back then.

gary
 
As a kid I can remember my grandfather in Glasgow stropping a razor and he was at it for ages and used loads of pressure (to much really). It was just like you see it done in the films - REALLY FAST.
 
Ah yes, I remember all too well researching the Maintenance Article, I tried doing less than 30 laps on a Coticule with water, every 7th shave, sooner rather than later, the shaves became less than nice :blink:

30 laps however kept the blade wonderfully sharp and smooth, I do recall Ray kept the same razor going for over 6 months with stropping alone, so it undoubtedly works, however for me regular touch ups on a Coticule are a necessary thing.

Best regards
Ralfson (Dr)
 
Well thank you all for these answers! Nice!

Yesterday night, I've done a "big" stropping session : 60 or so on a piece of jeans (my canvas for now, 'till I'll get a real loom strop), then 60 or so on leather.

Hht was around 4 : a very very little catch sometimes... and shave this morning was good. :thumbup:

I still fell my skin is not top after, but i think it's also because i feel tired these days, I should sleep a bit more... :confused:

Well I'll keep all this in mind, and may work my touch up technique (I agree with what Gary said that it's certainly better to do frequent touch up, than to have to do a complete re-hone, even once a year.)

Tahnks again to all of you!
 
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