If anybody knows, somebody here will. How do I sharpen an old straight razor? It's starting to lose its edge. BTW, made by Fred.Broeker, Solingen, Germany.
grouseman; Top of the morning to you sir, I hope the day's looking fine out your way and you're all well as can be.
Do you have a leather strop for it?
When I'm just freshening up the edge on something like a straight razor, I'll take a good look at it under a bright light with an opti-visor and if it's not rolled too, too bad, a stropping with leather dressed with polishing compound will usually do it.
If it's rolled beyond what can be stropped back, then a white Hard Arkansas stone, well oiled will work but one needs to pay attention to keeping the angle correct and consistent.
Some people find that say a piece of 1500 grit wet/dry paper on a chunk of glass, again well oiled, works better for them. That's worth a try too.
Then strop carefully and try it out.
I'll say too that "testing" the edge on paper or one's thumb, etc makes it dull again at those spots - one can see it sometimes under that bright light with that optivisor, but you can surely feel it or that's been my experience.
Hopefully that helped and made sense.
Good luck with it regardless and all the best to you all out east.
I shave that way, all the time. Leather paddle strop w/diamond paste about once a month, linen/leather hanging strop every shave, hard ark stone then translucent ark stone if something went wrong to an edge, which is rare. With the right hollow grind, the back edge seems to make the shaving edge work right. For me, the more important thing is to hone/strop with a light pressure-much lighter than a knife. And there's a formula for the correct edge, for me- 18 strop strokes on linen side, then 7 strokes on leather- that's each side, of course. Guess everybody might need something different.
If anybody knows, somebody here will. How do I sharpen an old straight razor? It's starting to lose its edge. BTW, made by Fred.Broeker, Solingen, Germany.
Alternatively, if you do not lose over a billion dollars in the market, you can buy a new razor.
I VOTED FOR TRUMP TWICE, AND WILL VOTE FOR HIM AGAIN
There used to be an old timer who was head of a barber school near Pittsburgh who could take anyone's dull straight razor and sharpen it quickly freehand. Every razor was said to be sharper than anybody else could get with any amount of time, stones and strops.
I keep talking myself into going to my collection of antique straight razors for now on. It's just that, I don't have the patience to take time to do it right. I have over ten new 6 blade quality shave refills that are quick and Nick free.
Never tried to sharpen one myself, always sent mine off to a honing service, but I'm pretty sure you lay them flat. That's why all the old wore out ones have heavily worn spines.
grouseman; Top of the morning to you sir, I hope the day's looking fine out your way and you're all well as can be.
Do you have a leather strop for it?
When I'm just freshening up the edge on something like a straight razor, I'll take a good look at it under a bright light with an opti-visor and if it's not rolled too, too bad, a stropping with leather dressed with polishing compound will usually do it.
If it's rolled beyond what can be stropped back, then a white Hard Arkansas stone, well oiled will work but one needs to pay attention to keeping the angle correct and consistent.
Some people find that say a piece of 1500 grit wet/dry paper on a chunk of glass, again well oiled, works better for them. That's worth a try too.
Then strop carefully and try it out.
I'll say too that "testing" the edge on paper or one's thumb, etc makes it dull again at those spots - one can see it sometimes under that bright light with that optivisor, but you can surely feel it or that's been my experience.
Hopefully that helped and made sense.
Good luck with it regardless and all the best to you all out east.
Dwayne
Yes sir.
I was surprised how many straight razor videos there are on youtube. Here's one that makes sense to a straight razor newbie like me. He seems to know what he's talking about too . Like you said about not testing sharpness like one might do with a hunting knife.
Just stop shaving. It was only the f-a-g Romans in the past and the beardless girly-men of today that ever wanted to make their face look like a woman's or a little boy's.
Just stop shaving. It was only the f-a-g Romans in the past and the beardless girly-men of today that ever wanted to make their face look like a woman's or a little boy's.
Semi related- what's up with the trend of males wanting to shave their junk? There's even television commercials for special junk shaving clippers now. . .
Just stop shaving. It was only the f-a-g Romans in the past and the beardless girly-men of today that ever wanted to make their face look like a woman's or a little boy's.
I am a big proponent of men retaining facial hair.
But as to the Roman reference, there was an emperor that rocked a beard and made it stylish. Though I’d not want associated with him.
