Thread: Do you get what you pay for?

+1 with what Bouschie said, on the razors. The brushes found at CVS, Rite-aid, Wal Greens, Walmart, are usually the Van Der Hagen Boar brushes, some may carry the tweezerman. The VDH boar brushes seem to hold up well. Have you thought about having your Grandpa's brush restored? One of the vendors here could probably do it (look under the classifieds).

I would think twice before using your Fathers sharpening stones...Unless you know what grit they are. Typical setup might be for a full set of stones is a 1k (setting bevels) 4k, 8k, and a 12k - if you plan on honing your own razors. I'll point out that you don't need a full set of hones if your going to buy shave ready razors that will only need maintained (edge).

At the very least you need a straight razor, shave brush, and shave soap or cream (I reccomend Real shaving cream or RS starting out). If you want to maintain your edge I would settle for a 12k hone or if you can find a decent vintage Barbers hone (you might use it every 6 shaves YMMV) I think I use mine twice a year but I have 12 straight's razors in my rotation. Read the Wiki on here, lots of info.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

The Gold Dollars have ok steel but the geometry and grind errors on over 50% of them do not make them easy to hone and set up, there is a huge thread on here with tons of info on them and the older Double Arrows... We got so sick of the "Discussion" because they are so inconsistent we just started putting all the posts together in that thread, if they were all bad there would be no discussion or if they were all good.. but they are 50-50 so some like them and some hate them...

http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...ld-dollar.html

Originally Posted by TulaneBoy

Oh, one more question. I did some more reading on the Gold Dollar thread, and noticed that the thread is closed and nobody can add a post to it. It didn't look to me like the discussion had got particularly heated or offensive, but maybe my standards are not as high or something. I have been told I argue like a pit bull LOL! I just figured the Gold Dollar experts would be watching that thread and they might have the answers to questions about them. I gather from another post in this thread that all Gold Dollar posts have been moved to that thread, so is posting about them discouraged? The thing is, I know nothing about them and I am curious.

I explained it back a ways in this thread... We closed it because it always ends up being the exact same discussion over and over and over

There is a good thread about how to fix the issues on here someplace though

Originally Posted by gssixgun

I explained it back a ways in this thread... We closed it because it always ends up being the exact same discussion over and over and over

Yea, sorts like running around with one foot nailed to the floor, you never seem to get anywhere.

Bob

Originally Posted by gssixgun

I explained it back a ways in this thread... We closed it because it always ends up being the exact same discussion over and over and over

There is a good thread about how to fix the issues on here someplace though

I will pass on fixing the issues of one for the moment, maybe. The thing is, I would have to not only get it right, but KNOW I got it right or don't got it right, and to be honest I just don't know enough about straight razors yet to do that. I have one coming that is supposed to already be "fixed" though I might enjoy tackling one myself in the future. I just don't know at this point where this straight razor thing is going to take me.

But just to clarify, is further discussion of them against the rules? Not complaining or anything if it is. I just want to KNOW the rules so I can follow them, know what I mean? I hope I haven't picked up a hot potato here.

I haven't found that thread, just the closed one. I will look for it tomorrow or the next day. I have a busy morning ahead of me so I need to turn in now.

Originally Posted by Trimmy72

+1 with what Bouschie said, on the razors. The brushes found at CVS, Rite-aid, Wal Greens, Walmart, are usually the Van Der Hagen Boar brushes, some may carry the tweezerman. The VDH boar brushes seem to hold up well. Have you thought about having your Grandpa's brush restored? One of the vendors here could probably do it (look under the classifieds).

I would think twice before using your Fathers sharpening stones...Unless you know what grit they are. Typical setup might be for a full set of stones is a 1k (setting bevels) 4k, 8k, and a 12k - if you plan on honing your own razors. I'll point out that you don't need a full set of hones if your going to buy shave ready razors that will only need maintained (edge).

At the very least you need a straight razor, shave brush, and shave soap or cream (I reccomend Real shaving cream or RS starting out). If you want to maintain your edge I would settle for a 12k hone or if you can find a decent vintage Barbers hone (you might use it every 6 shaves YMMV) I think I use mine twice a year but I have 12 straight's razors in my rotation. Read the Wiki on here, lots of info.

Thanks for the tips on the brush. As for the stones, they are mostly Arkansas stones, and from my reading it seems that they don't exactly have a grit rating. I think his real big one is a Translucent, and he has a couple that I think are the Surgical Black type, and of course lots of the coarser and softer ones. I think he has pretty much the whole spectrum, actually. About 20 stones in all, some passed down to him. But I will worry about stones after I got a razor or two and one is dull and I feel up to trying my hand at sharpening it. My meticulous (lol! not!) research indicates that I should learn to shave with a straight before trying to sharpen one. Kinda seems backwards to me, since you ought to have a sharp razor first before you try to shave, but I will go along with the experts.

Okay I REALLY got to crash now. Thanks again you and everybody.

Originally Posted by TulaneBoy

...research indicates that I should learn to shave with a straight before trying to sharpen one. Kinda seems backwards to me, since you ought to have a sharp razor first before you try to shave, but I will go along with the experts...

You should start with a shave ready razor. A sharp razor at 1k is far from shave ready, because shave ready is about smooth and sharp. A few of the elder members only had arkys to maintain their razors. They work but are slow compared to equivalent grit synthetic water hones. On the plus side the finish is supposed to be rather smooth. BTW they are graded by density ie specific gravity.

If you are honing a razor for the first time how do you know when you are done if you have never used a shave ready razor? Can it be done sure, I did. But by the time I had it figured out. I had several bad habits that have taken a long time (about 9 months) to get past. I eventually did get a pro honed razor for comparison. Start in the shallow end but come on down to the deep end soon.

Jonathan

HELP! My dad has my razors! They just got in and I am out of town. Darn. It will be a few days before I can shave with them. Meanwhile I bought a replaceable blade straight razor. It uses Gillette type double edge blades. Only thing is, I am kind of scared to try it. Looks friggin DEADLY! Should I just wait and try my regular straight razors first?

I think I got the lathering down pat. I bought a VDH badger brush and it is a lot better than the boar. Now I can really see the difference. I have been doing some reading about

http://straightrazorpalace.com/begin...made-easy.html
The art of manliness site charges $4 to download this book. Thanks to this site and to archives.org, I just got it for free.
another link I found was http://www.shavemyface.com/downloads...azor-Shave.pdf and it looks pretty good, too.

Any BS in there that I ought to know about? The internet is full of disinformation.

If my Dad tries to shave with my straight razors, will he mess them up? How delicate are they?

Originally Posted by TulaneBoy

HELP! My dad has my razors! They just got in and I am out of town. Darn. It will be a few days before I can shave with them. Meanwhile I bought a replaceable blade straight razor. It uses Gillette type double edge blades. Only thing is, I am kind of scared to try it. Looks friggin DEADLY! Should I just wait and try my regular straight razors first?

I think I got the lathering down pat. I bought a VDH badger brush and it is a lot better than the boar. Now I can really see the difference. I have been doing some reading about

http://straightrazorpalace.com/begin...made-easy.html
The art of manliness site charges $4 to download this book. Thanks to this site and to archives.org, I just got it for free.
another link I found was http://www.shavemyface.com/downloads...azor-Shave.pdf and it looks pretty good, too.

Any BS in there that I ought to know about? The internet is full of disinformation.

If my Dad tries to shave with my straight razors, will he mess them up? How delicate are they?

Provided your dad shaves his face it should be right, no worse than you shaving yours

Unless he bands the edge off the faucet or has bad technique har har

However in all seriousness, you'll have to strop the blade if he shaves with it, and you won't do it well your first time as you're still learning (when you first start learning to strop, your main goal is first to not harm the edge and then later to actually improve it). Because of this, you'll in a sense "lose" that initial, fresh shave ready feel, which is important when starting out because it gives you your [shave ready] reference.

I'd tell him to wait if he wants to try shaving with your new razor, and that he can use it second

As for correct information, find what you can on the SRP wiki/library. Anything specific you can do a search in the upper right hand corner or ask someone if you still can't find what you're looking for. SRP is a really active forum with people all over the world, and as such, you'll find a varied range of good information here (as opposed to something like yahoo answers where you don't know the source of the answer, here you know your answer is from a wet shaver). I say varied range because a lot of it is personal preference (you'll hear your mileage may varry, or YMMV, a lot).

Originally Posted by kwlfca

Unless he bands the edge off the faucet or has bad technique har har

However in all seriousness, you'll have to strop the blade if he shaves with it, and you won't do it well your first time as you're still learning (when you first start learning to strop, your main goal is first to not harm the edge and then later to actually improve it). Because of this, you'll in a sense "lose" that initial, fresh shave ready feel, which is important when starting out because it gives you your [shave ready] reference.

I'd tell him to wait if he wants to try shaving with your new razor, and that he can use it second

Good point, didn't think of that.