Thread: Newbie: How to get it sharp enough to shave?

Originally Posted by Danktt

I have recently purchased a Muhle RM30 in a shaving gift set form Executive Shaving co, It contains a presentation box, the razor, a super badger hair brush a leather strop with what i believe is a Dovo Dual grade strop pastes.

My first part of the question is how can i tell if it is sharp enough to shave with, it gave no indication if it was shave ready or not.

Dan, a few months back I bought three (!!) ⅝ Mühle RM 30 straights during a trip to Vienna, Austria because they only cost me (brand-new) the paltry equivalent of $76 a piece.

First I bought one, took it to my Hotel room, stropped it, shaved with it and liked shave.
Then I went and bought 2 more...

After the usual stropping, they all shaved nice out of the box.
I was pleasantly surprised, even more so since the shop is not known to prepare razors before the sale.

So I can say that out of three RM30's all three were shave-ready out of the box and that all that the three required was the daily (no paste) stropping before the shave.

Which would then mean that in your case it could be stropping, or more likely technique that is behind the less than optimum experience.


I hope you don't mind my saying so, but I vividly remember that my first shaves were a far cry from my Mühle R101 (a variant of the open comb R41) close and smooth DE shaving experience and it took me around 6 weeks of daily straight shaving before I got to a comparable shave.


So my advice would be to keep practicing and don't give up; once you get there you'll most likely find that it was worth the experience!

Hard to say now, if it was… shave ready, do the following check and if not send it out for honing. Do not strop before shaving, when you get it back.

As said, find a mentor locally to get you started with stropping and shaving, stropping is not as easy as it looks. One missed stroke can ruin the edge.

Hands on mentoring will greatly reduce your learning curve.

The following video will show you how to check for a set bevel, only your face will tell you if it will be a comfortable shave.

Hang in there you will get it… we all did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZYFsOP7rBc

Hi Danktt
I would personally send your razor to either steve at the invisible edge or neil at the stropshop here in the UK. I say this because I'm pretty sure unless specified all of the straights at the executive shaving come with a factory edge which is nearly always not shave ready. It'll cost roughly £25 but you will know what shave ready feels like. Once you've established what a truly shave ready razor feels like you can work from that. I've used both steve and neils honing services and you cant go wrong.

a straight razor should be better than a DE for a weeks growth

get it professionally hones and try again

Originally Posted by markbignosekelly

Hi Danktt
I would personally send your razor to either steve at the invisible edge or neil at the stropshop here in the UK. I say this because I'm pretty sure unless specified all of the straights at the executive shaving come with a factory edge which is nearly always not shave ready. It'll cost roughly £25 but you will know what shave ready feels like. Once you've established what a truly shave ready razor feels like you can work from that. I've used both steve and neils honing services and you cant go wrong.

+ 1 on the above for both Steve and Neil. If you buy another new razor both these gentlemen supply shave ready blades

Hi and welcome. Shave ready means different things to different people. That said as yours cut arm hair it probably has a set bevel but needs to be further honed before being truly shave ready. Send it out and at least you will know its not the razor. Start slow and steady and you will be fine. Good luck.