So close...
and yet so far.
Last Saturday I took Kawaguchi-sensei's Tamahanage straight back to him. I had taken it back to the hones--using slurry on my razor-sized Nakayama, refreshing the slurry 5 times, and making sure I got the color even across the bevel. I got what I thought was a nice edge, and I DID NOT SHAVE TEST IT. I wanted to check my eye, see if I could see what Kawaguchi-sensei was seeing. It looked evenly and deeply white across both sides of the bevel to my eyes.
So I took the razor in, thoughts of honing nirvana racing through my eyes...and he took a close look. Looked again. Stropped on his arm. Looked again.
Smiled and said "97 out of 100."
Crap.
"Right here." He showed me a spot at the very heel, where the razor had not apparently hit the hone consistently. The color was not even, it was still a bit too shiny, and there was my three points.
Crap.
However, there was some consolation. He told me once I got my last three points...I could have the razor.
His Tamahagane Iwasaki.
Soooooo....not so much crap.
So I took the razor home, a wee bit elated. And of course, I figured it was time to shave.
Here's where it gets fun...
I stropped on the lovely Kanayama #90000 strop and prepped for my shave.
Lathered up with Truefitt & Hill 1805, and shaved. Smooth...so smooth. Damn, what a smooth shave.
But...
I was bleeding in odd places. Little stripes and scratches...
Weird.
Too weird.
I look at the blade and notice an odd sparkle. A glint where it shouldn't have been...
A chip in the edge.
The edge of that lovely Tamahagane razor...and the only way to get rid of it is to remove so much lovely, lovely steel.
Crap.
Oy Vey!!
ReplyDelete