Please help ! I have a honing question

K

knivesfanatic

Joined
Apr 27, 2014
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I'm trying to hone my Mach III razor-blade, but I want to create the best possible system. I'd love your advice and help guys.

This is what I have right now --> http://imgur.com/a/Domm8

Its a strip of leather on recycled redwood with chromium oxide powder & wood glue.

Here are my thoughts -->

Is there a particular type of leather that'd be best?

Do you think that chromium oxide is the best powder I can use? The goal here is that I want to get myself the best life on my Mach III, so I'm willing to spend the money to have an awesome shave.

What are your thoughts with balsa instead of leather?

Also, here's the process I'm using now. I'd love any and all advice !
1) Casing
2) Wetting
3) Drying
4) Rolling
5) Drying again

Then, I glue it to the redwood and its good to go.

Do you have any tips on the best process to go through? Any tricks with any of the steps?

I would really love any and all information you could share with me. Thanks so much !!!
 
So my guess is that you are trying to make your own version of a razor pit?

Interesting idea, a couple of thoughts right off the top. Chromium Oxide is kinda toxic, is a known mutagen (so possibly carcinogenic) So what I'm saying is, since it would be very hard to clean any residue out from inside the razor head, I don't know that I would want that on my face.

As for your options, Many people make paddle strops from leather and basla, also felt, newspaper, linen cloth, old fiber fire-hose, seatbelt. You can use anything, the main factor is that it is smooth and flat. Ideally cheap, but realistically for all of the talk of differences in leather, it seems that there is as much difference between strops of the same leather, compared to other leathers. You can also strop on clean leather, and each material has its own abrasive qualities. I've never cased the leather for a strop, or read about doing that, so that is interesting. I put quite a lot of neetsfoot oil into the leather to make it soft, and then burnished the leather to smooth it. But I'm not a pro, so I don't really know for sure.

With this sort of system, you are only able to strop half the blade, and there is some debate as to whether razor pit style devices actually work. As long as there have been razor blades, there have been all manner of methods for refreshing them, some based on reality, but many on pure marketing. If this works for you, great, I'm not trying to say it won't. I'm just not sure you will get out of it what you expect.

As for the best shave you can get? start with soap and a brush, instead of canned goop, and then start thinking about moving to a DE. A little more work, but a much better shave, and blades so cheap, that you could use a new blade every day and still possibly be cheaper than your mach3. Okay, maybe not, but for me two years worth of blades ends up being 30 bucks.
 
Some cartridge razors do well being stopped, especially with a denim strop in my experience. Other will just be instantly dulled it depends on the angle the blades are set at. DE is a better choice if you want a better shave and it's cheaper.
 
DE razor all the way. I switched from a Mach3 two years ago, and haven't looked back. I can not imagine shaving anymore without putting a brush to my face.
 
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