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!