Fingers Crossed!

Well, as referenced in this post, my barber has promised me a nice big Nakayama if I can hone three razors to his satisfaction. I have four razors I think might be contenders...So I'm off to the barber shop today to see how it goes!


Just for your information, the razors are these:

A Torrey "Our 136", rehoned to a nice, smooth edge...


This ABC, which I just figured out...


A nice big Herder that had some rough beginnings, but is a great shaver now...


And my good old Genco. This one's been through it, but it's remained one of my best shavers.

So let's hope at least ONE of these is good enough for him, so I have a better idea of what to hope for!

I'll let you know...

***UPDATE***

Well, it went better than I had expected, but not as good as I secretly hoped. Of course, I knew that the chances of me coming home with the hone today were slim, but there was this tiny, selfish part of me thinking "Yeah, man, you scored it!!". I didn't, of course...

The ABC passed. He took one look at it, smoothed the edge against his arm, and said "Good!". So...YAY!

The other three weren't so hot. The Genco was unfinised at the toe and heel, the Herder had an uneven bevel, and the Torrey was all over the place. And he was right on all counts, of course, now that I look more closely. The crazy thing is, he totally chose the best shaver by LOOKING AT THE BEVEL. It makes sense, actually...if you can see that the edge is evenly polished, with a straight bevel and no random bits undone, you can see that the strokes were even and regular, and that the edge is probably ok. A little touch will tell you if the edge is keen, and with 40+ years of experience, that's enough.

He even told me exactly what I was doing wrong. I had the hone at the wrong height, causing my arms to move in parabolas instead of even, flat strokes. And yeah, he was totally right...Amazing. And helpful.

I'm greatly encouraged. Especially as I got home, took to the Genco, and polished it evenly across the bevel. The test shave tonight? Bang on, baby!!!!

I think I might have another one!

Nagura: The Grand Experiement Begins

I've started using these little stones I got, and I reckon I should keep track of it...

So let's start with the razors.


My main tester is a Genco Fluid Steel. The edge is essentially good, but it wasn't quite keen enough for me so I took it through a 5K/8K pyramid on my Naniwa super stones and got it to a very fine shaving edge. I shaved off of it at 8K and got an excellent edge.

So this one will be me test blade. I'm going to polish it on my Nakayama using the different nagura, and see if I can notice any difference.

First up: the Nagura my barber gave me.



This is a very hard stone, and looks identical to the Nakayama itself in color and texture. Using my barber's method, I gave the Genco 20 passes on heavy slurry, then slowly diluted, a la Bart's Dilucot method, and finished on water only.

The shave was good. Smooth, but not as keen as it should have been (the edge off the 8K was quite sharp.). I'll have to work on technique, perhaps...well, not actually perhaps...for sure!

My plan is to give this one a couple more test shaves, then polish it out on the 8K and then move to the Mejiro.

***

The other test is a bit less controlled.

I have this razor.



It's nice looking, isn't it? It's Japanese made, but marked "Imported steel" on the tail...meaning it's most likely Swedish steel (that's what everyone seems to use--good steel...). I was trying to hone it but making NO progress...it was like it was immune to the stones. I mentioned this to Glen/Gssixgun on SRP, and he said that Swedish steel can be a real SOB to hone because it's so hard. He recommended I try slurry on my $K to help cut it...and a little light went on.

Nagura time!


I got out my Botan, which according to the site where I got it, "Has a strong honing effect...and is speedy on carpenter's tools" (It also smells really really good. Like...GOOD> Weird, I know, for a rock, but it's true). The folks I bought it from said they are all ok for razors, so that's no worry. Speedy and strong sounded just the ticket, so I slurried up my King 4K and went to town.

Again, I hit the Dilucot method. I gave the razor a few sets of ten, and BOOM, it was cutting arm hairs. It hadn't done that at ALL before...and now, I was getting super smooth action. Joy! I finished out the dilucot and that edge was KEEN.

Again, I hit it on the 8K as well, botan slurry with the dilucot method, and that edge....Fantastic. I shaved with it last night, at got a BBS with no irritation. Off an 8K edge with no stropping...amazing. Glen is a GENIUS, as is Bart, and this Botan is my new best friend!

It hurts SO MUCH Sometimes.

When honing goes well, it's an awesome feeling. Success, baby. Gotta love it. But Failure? GAAAAAAGH!

I have this Filarmonica #13 Inox. It's a lovely razor, and of course Filarmonica is quite the name these days.But it had this little chip, see? This little, itty bitty chip...


It's so small, I thought, I'll try to hone it out. Maybe it'll be a good learning experience!

So I tried it. Got out the old diamond plate, taped the spine, and started honing out that chip. The first thing I noticed was that the steel around the chip was also kind of broken, like it had been shattered when the chip happened.

The second thing I noticed was that, even after the chip was gone...the steel around where it had been was STILL broken!

Crap. The edge was crumbling right there. The steel was so weak that I could shatter it with my thumbnail, and I'm not even a Shaolin Monk!


Wellll...crap. I talked to Lynn Abrams, the godfather of razor honing, and he gave me some advice, but it all came down to this. Either throw it away, or hone and see if I can get past the weakened steel.

I found that I could actually see the weak spot on the bevel under the microscope--it reflected the light differently, so I could check as I honed. And hone I did.

For hours.

And hours.

And finally, FINALLY, today I got past the weakened steel. The razor is a good 2mm narrower than it was, but I got the defect out. HUZZAH!!!!

And I've spent 2 hours setting the bevel with no success.

GGGAHHHHH!!!!!!!

More than you want to know about Nagura...(LONNNNNG)

I'm taking this whole Japanese shaving thing to heart, learning as much as I can about all that I can, and it's really getting interesting...To me, at least.



People who are familiar with Japanese hones will have heard the word "Nagura" before. Those who haven't, well, basically when you use a natural Japanese stone to sharpen things, very often it will have a smaller stone with it that you rub all over the surface of the hone to make a thin mix of water and grit rubbed off that smaller stone. The smaller one is called a "Nagura". This is used in traditional Japanese honing to help increase the range of a hone's effect--often, a hone with a nagura will polish faster and more smoothly than just a hone itself. Why? I don't know. But I plan to find out.

Now, here's the thing that got me going on this--people dealing with straight razor honing have started using this word to describe ANY stone you use to make a slurry paste on your hones, and so we get things like "Cotigura", a portmanteau of "Coticule", the Belgian wonderstone, and "Nagura". Or people call the DMT card they use to raise a slurry on their stones a Nagura...Even Japan isn't immune to it--every little stone included with the synthetic water stones are called Nagura, as well. So I used to think that the word just meant "slurry stone", until one day in a thread on SRP where I posted videos of me honing on a Japanese natural stone using a slurry, someone asked me "Is that stone a Nagura or a Nakayama?" That question threw me. As if, Nagura must mean something much more than I had thought.

I was really confused...and then I started thinking about the name "Nagura." It doesn't have a meaning, or not at least one that is related to what it does. The kanji for the name, 名倉, has NOTHING to do with stones, or polishing or honing. Which is odd--Japanese is usually a pretty pragmatic language when it comes to objects. The word for a hone, 砥石 (to-ishi) translates directly to "polish stone". (Or, an example I like much better, the word for honey 蜂蜜, "hachimitsu", is "bee syrup".) But Nagura? Roughly, it means something like "Famous Storehouse". That looks less like an object name, and more like a PERSON name.

Which led me on a merry chase...

I started with a simple search on the term. 95% of the hits on Google were for people. Hmmm...

Then came the motherlode. There is a seller on the Japanese Yahoo Auction site that keeps listing Japanese hones and Nagura, and they happen to have a webshop, which happens to include the word "nagura" in the URL. I investigated, and these guys take Nagura SERIOUSLY. They have pages and pages about them, and this stuff is amazing. So I started studying.

Nagura, as it turns out, are essentially super-fine hones. Due to reasons like highly variable hardness, size and immense rarity (read price), are not suitable for making actual hones. Instead, they are broken into small pieces and used with the hones from more suitable sources (like the Maruka Nakayama mine in Kyoto). And like the Nakayama mine, there is really only one serious place to get a Nagura.



According to the late Kousuke Iwasaki, when he first started making razors he had trouble with honing. he was getting breaks and chips on his edges, which he eventually found came from the inferior nagura that were being sold by the merchants--they were cheap, and easily found, and of substandard quality. So he began searching for a long lost source for the Nagura that had bene sued for centuries in the polishing of Katana...He took this selection very seriously; in his book "刃物の見方" ("Understanding Bladed Implements"), he said something along the lines of "If a razor maker can not hone a razor well, the razor will not shave well, and people will think that the razor is no good." So he worked on researching just where the best hones, and the best nagura to use with them, could be found.


The Junmikawashiro mine (純三河白-I'm not at all sure of that reading) in Aichi prefecture is the only place in Japan that produced the Nagura that Iwasaki-san found suitable for the finest honing and polishing. Not only that, he identified the different seams of the mine, and with the help of geologist Nagayuki Asano divided them based on their polishing effects, speed, and purity.


The ten seams of the mine are shown abov, in a page from Iwasaki's notebook.

They are:
1. Mejiro (White-eye)
2. Tenjou (heaven)
3. Buchikou
4. Koma (very fine)
5. Botan　（Tree Peony)
6. Layered Botan
7. Mushi (nothing)
8. Atsu (？？）
9. Ban （？？）
10. Shikiban.

I personally am still learning the differences between these seams. I know that the　Koma and the Mejiro are supposed to be the finest, with Tenjou next, while the Botan is fine and fast cutting...
So I bought one of each!!!! (Well, no Koma...yet...)


I'm going to keep studying these, and I hope soon not only to have a better grasp of WHY you need them, but how to use them and the differences between the three types. But what I fear, and what will truly be something to look out for, is...
Nagura Acqusition Disorder.

Oh dear...

Whew...What a week. (And a Soap Review in There somewhere...)

Well now, it's been a full one again. I thought things were settling down, but I was wrong. But I managed to fit in some smooth shaves...

The strop shop is open, but no one's bought anything yet. I do keep getting questions about stuff I don't have, though. So...there's SOMETHING going on! I've got some new things in development as well, so hopefully again this week I'll have another big announcement. And of course, I'm busy trying to keep my shaves going right, so...So Time has not been on my side, but it's good to be busy I think. Isn't it?

Maybe?

******



I've had some good times on the hones.

I have an "F. Herder Abr. Sohn" blade--it's a big, swooping blade with lines that strike me as just right. It's not the prettiest, but it's certainly not bad off. It cleaned up nicely and, most importantly, it honed up EASY. Zip zip, up the ladder, and BOOM! A sharp, smooth shaver...it's enough to make me realize that people MEAN it when they say that Solingen blades are good ones. Man, I love it when a plan comes together.

******



And in other news, I've been trying some new soap, Pre de Provence, from France.

I'll admit, the first two shaves I had with it did not go well. I ended up with terrible irritation--a bright red, speckled face. It lasted for a couple of days...And I was worried it was the soap. I gave myself a few days of Mitchell's Wool Fat to heal up (always a good idea when your face is feeling rough) and last night I gave the PdP another go.

It was great! A very thick, creamy lather with nice cushion. It wasn't quite as slick as it could have been, there was some drag on the razor, but it went well. And afterward my skin felt quite nice. MWF is still my best as far as skin care goes, but this one is pretty good.

The scent is...not my favorite. It's kind of astringent...it reminds me of this scented candle my mother used to burn when I was a kid, one that burned my nose. But it's not that bad, just not one of the mellow, pleasant scents I prefer.

Sooo..How's it going on your side?

The Shop Is Open for Business

Kanayama Cordovan Strops.

Let me know how it looks...and if you want one!

Best,
Jim

A landmark...Honing again...

So after some rocky shaves this week, I decided to scale back and do some safer shave--I got out the Mitchell's Wool Fat, and some nice razors, and kept it simple.

I

Some updates...Call me The Kamisori Kid...and VIDEO TIME!!!

Blame Aleks for the title...

So I have been BUUUUU-SYYYY lately. Sorry for the brief hiatus, but it's been a good busy.

I will soon be opening a wee bit of a strop shop, making the fantastic Kanayama Cordovan Stops of Tokyo, Japan (of which I recently acquired an AMAZING example...truly a masterpiece. Details soon, I promise) available to all comers. It's not exactly a business for me, it's more of a labor of love for my wife and I, but it should be fun. Things should be up and running later this week. I'll be honest...if this goes smoothly, and if I learn how to do this kind of thing, there's a tiny little part of my brain that is thinking "Japanese Shave Shop"...maybe some razors, some aftershaves and stuff. Nothing big, just something to open up the market a bit. But this is pure speculation, of course...right now, one step at a time.
So keep your eyes open for the soon to be Eastern Smooth Productions "Kanayama Strop shop!"




In other news, you guys might remember me soliciting questions for Ken Hill, at Schick Japan. He had agreed to do an interview, and so I thought you guys might like to take part. Unfortunately, I never received a reply to the questions, and finally just last week I got an email from him apologizing and informing me that he would be leaving Schick Japan this summer...so it looks like that interview is a wash-up. However, I would like to wish Ken the best of luck with his new venture, and of course welcome him to the discussion whenever he wants to drop by!

And finally, in the more on-topic world of shaving--things are afoot. I've been finding something odd lately; despite the weird physical contortions and acrobatics involved in their use, I have been getting UNBELIEVABLE shaves from my kamisori. Seriously, faceturbating masterpieces. It's enough to make me want to swer off the folders for good! So what I'm thinking is, a good long stretch of "Kamisoris every day". Might throw in a couple of test shaves with my honing here and there--gotta practice for that new stone!--but my real weapons will be the Kamisori of the Kawaguchi collection.



With that in mind, tonight I'll be shaving with one of the Chikushinos I got not so long ago. I know NOTHING about these razors. The name isn't even for sure--my wife had to guess at the reading of the name. All I know is that one of them is marked "1968", and that they are "well used". Some might even say "battered". But we'll see how they shave.

Oh! I almost forgot--I have made my first shave-related videos, demonstrating the "Kawaguchi Honing Method", the way I learned to hone Kamisori from my barber. The razor in this video is the one I will be using this week. Enjoy!


(A screw-up, but amusing)


(The final cut...)

Unorthodoxy, Thy Name is Jim...

I LAUGH in the face of tradition. Ha! HA HA!!!!

Most people like to do things that they know work. They like to avoid risks, and not put themselves in unknown situations. Me? I'm a THRILL SEEKER!!!

Well, not really. But in my little obse...hobby here, I like to play around with things and see what works and what doesn't. So when I was talking to a representative at Naniwa Abrasives about some of their products, and he mentioned that they have abrasive powders up to 3000 grit, I was very intrested.



Now, a lot of people use abrasive powders in honing razors, but usually only in finishing--for example, .5 micron Chromium Oxide powder, or .5 or .25 diamond, suspended in a paste or spray. These are used to put the final polish on a razor's edge, but I was thinking, what about the REST of the process? If they work at the end of a honing session, why not the beginning. So I requested some samples of the powders, and I was generously given some.




I got samples of 400, 1000, 1500, and 3000 grist White Alumina and Green Carbon. I decided to start with Green Carbon (Silicon Carbide) as it is VERY hard, close to diamond, and I thought this would be a good stepping stone to the diamond pastes used in the finishing stages. I got some wood (medium density fiberwood--Daiso saves the day again!) and made a thin paste with cutlery oil.


I applied this to a pice of the board and had a nice 1K hone!


I repeated the process with the 3K, and then got some 1micron, .5m and .25m diamond paste to use as finishers. The jump from 3000 grit to 1m is pretty big--3000 is about 4m--but since diamond is a pretty fast cutter, I felt it was an ok risk to take.


My first razor was the Rongin was whining about before. I had had tons of trouble setting a bevel, so I thought I'd try the pasted wood. Using a mix of pasted wood strop and diamond plate, I was finally able to get the bevel set. Then I moved up to the 3K, and it was AWESOME. The hone really put a keen, smooth edge on the razor, it was popping hairs an inch off my arm--off the 3K!!!!


The diamond pastes finished up the job, and I shaved...and it was an awesome edge. These pasted hones are really something else. I'll continue to experiment, especially with full bevel setting, but I think this is pretty cool--a full set of hones for less than $10. Maybe not perfect, but pretty darn neat, I think.