Well, since everybody else is throwing pennies around on this thread I suppose I will too :D . DOVO- good f"ing razor but it's not shave ready out of the box. One of the honemeisters here can do it and it's worth the money.
Any soap'll do. The soaps that are intended for shaving are great, I'm sure, but I've gotten good results from Ivory bar soap. Keep in mind, however, that I go with the " Collapse of society- shave with ditchwater." approach much of the time :rolleyes: . The linen strop may be optional but I prefer using it. The main thing is to keep your strop taut and use only enough pressure to keep the razor flat on the strop. Pasted strop- good idea. Don't expect perfection right away as there's a learning curve involved here; we all have our FNG stories and you'll have yours soon so just stick with it. And, oh yes, by the way,welcome to the forum as you've lucked out and found where all the right information is to be found. :tu
Kurt