Thread: Straight razor shaving take two

Welcome to the forum. Don't give up! I'm sorry you had a bad experience. Send it with your brother like the others are saying. You won't regret it. You will feel more comfortable with that razor when it is honed right & also buy you a second one for when your other one is out being honed. You can watch some honing videos here:
Honing videos - Straight Razor Place Library
You will then eventually be able to buy your own stones & hone your razors yourself saving you time & money in the long run. Just think of the time you won't have to send them out anymore to be honed because you learned to do it yourself. Make sure you buy you some good hones when you do.When you get ready to do so you can visit the forum store, Straight Razor Designs. They have good quality hones on there & at good prices. You might even find someone selling them closer to you. For now though just send them with your brother & have him mail it back to you. You will be impressed with the satisfaction you will get from your shave once you do that. I hope we all have got you wanting to send the razor with your brother for now. Good luck my friend!

Thanks everyone for the advice and encouragement. The razor is on its way back to my brother to Australia and have emailed Oz.
Here is a picture of my razor and strop: .

I'm sure I'll have to learn how to hone it eventually and then hopefully be able to help someone here locally or at least pass it onto my newborn son.

Just one more thing to add to all the above........shave with the razor before stropping it. Then, strop it before your next shave. It should be the same kind of shave you had the first time. Unless of course, you messed up the edge with improper stropping. Hopefully, that is not the case. Don't give up. You CAN do it. I recently started shaving with a straight razor (two months), and after many many videos of honing, I have started getting good results honing and better shaves. Good luck and smooth shaves to you.


Mike

Start practicing to strop now while the razor is off being honed. Practice rolling a butter knife on it's spine as if it were a razor, get in the practice of keeping the razor in contact with the strop all the way through forward and back as well as using a light touch. Excellent stropping skills along with a properly honed razor should last you several months before it needs to be touched up, and I don't mean honed, just a light touch up on a barbers hone should suffice. And by all means, get yourself a second quality razor so that you have a backup when one is out of town being honed.

Anything with a factory edge is pretty much guaranteed NOT to be shave ready. I had a TI that had a pretty close to shave ready edge, and had a good shave with it, but it needed a proper bevel set and proper honing.

Unless I get a razor from a known seller who has the same standards around shave ready that I do, I send it right out to be honed. I like refreshing my own blades, but for now, I prefer to have a razor done by a pro the first time around.

So my advice is that, if you aren't 100% sure that it is shave ready, send it out to be honed by a pro. With the Classified Member Services on this website, you should be able to find someone reliable, if not just buying the razor from SRD first and knowing that it will be delivered to you shave ready with a follow up honing for free.

Got the news today that the edge was a bit messed up but succeeded in setting a new bevel. Will be a superb shaver!
Now I just hope that it survives the trip from Australia to Cebu and when it gets here I won't mess up the edge again.

@guitstik, I'll take your advice and start to practice with a butter knife on my strop.

Any ideas of when I should start to look at getting my own honing equipment? From the wiki and forum I have gathered I will at least need a finishing stone or barbers hone to keep it sharp.

You probably didn't mess the edge up in the first place unless you stropped it wrong. Many razors are said to be shave ready but really aren't. If buying a razor, it is best to have it honed & stropped to make sure it is sharp.
You will "at least" need a finishing stone but if you are going to do the honing procedure, just my opinion, I would get a 1k for setting the bevel & something like the Norton 4k/8k. Then to polish it in really good if you can afford it, get you a 10k, 12k, 16k or a Belgian Coticule. It depends what you can afford. You'll be glad you did then strop it & you'll be good to go.

Originally Posted by iancebu

Got the news today that the edge was a bit messed up but succeeded in setting a new bevel. Will be a superb shaver!
Now I just hope that it survives the trip from Australia to Cebu and when it gets here I won't mess up the edge again.

@guitstik, I'll take your advice and start to practice with a butter knife on my strop.

Any ideas of when I should start to look at getting my own honing equipment? From the wiki and forum I have gathered I will at least need a finishing stone or barbers hone to keep it sharp.

There are two things that can ruin a razor, incorrect stropping, incorrect honing and faucets. Okay, three things, incorrect stropping, incorrect honing, faucets and dropping it. Four, four things that can ruin a razor, incorrect stropping, incorrect honing, faucets, being dropped and rust. This list can go on and on... Learn how to strop the razor correctly before moving on to honing one. Usually I would suggest that someone new to SR shaving go slow in fact that is pretty much my mantra, slow and finding a mentor in your area but that may be a difficult task for you considering your location. There still may be someone close to you that can help but with the experience that you had with the barbershop guys I say fat chance. Watch all the YouTube videos that you can find, I suggest all the ones by Glen and Lynn as they should be your benchmark for honing professionals. I could tell you to get a whole lot of stones but I won't as that won't help you. What I use and what others use will generally differ considerably but I use a Norton 800 for bevel setting and then move on to the Norton 4k/8k stone but only after it will shave arm hair off of the 800. After the 4k/8k I move to the Chosera 12k and that is pretty much it for stones, those three should be sufficient for all your needs. After getting proficient with those then you could start looking for new stones to add to the collection that you will undoubtedly start building when the HAD kicks in. As with everything tho, go slow