Been a long time since I did a synthetic progression. This razor arrived with some damage; a chip and quite a bit of deformation near the heel where it must have been dropped. Removed that and tapered the heel back with an old oilstone I use for axes. Then went to the Shapton Glass 2k to set a bevel. Took quite a while, which makes sense seeing I was starting from scratch (heh).
Once I had a bevel, most of the work was done on a Shapton Kuromaku 5k, before moving to a Naniwa Gouken 8k. At that point I dragged out the first stone I bought, the Black Shadow. Worked from a light slurry to water before finishing on lather. I know people don't rate these stones, but I have got some pretty decent edges off them and I wanted to see if, after having learned a little bit more about honing in the time since I last used one, I could get an edge that would come close to a coticule or jnat. HHT was promising, so the shave in the morning should be interesting.
Went in for a quick touchup on the Ozuku when I noticed a small chip at the heel, so more significant work required. Diamond slurry on the Iromono kiita took care of that, and then finished with botan → koma on Ozuku. Lovely HHT.
Been a while since I dragged this rock out. It is softer than my other JNat finishers, so I don't turn to it as much. Thought I would see how it performed with a different approach. Ozuku tomo → full asano progression. HHT was bang on.
A bit more than a touch up, as there were a few little chips along the edge. Diamond slurry to clean those up, then botan and koma to leave a lovely kasumi finish. Shave in the morning.
This week: took the Starlet to the vintage coticule for a touch up. Started with a very light milky slurry and worked down to water; finished on oil. HHT off the stone was good; marvellous after stropping on linen. Shave in a couple of hours will be the real test.
