I am looking for a mentor in my area that can help me with my SR. It hurt when I was shaving with it this morning and I sliced my face open with it.
Just need some help, please. I so want to be able to shave with a SR not just my dang DE.
I am looking for a mentor in my area that can help me with my SR. It hurt when I was shaving with it this morning and I sliced my face open with it.
Just need some help, please. I so want to be able to shave with a SR not just my dang DE.
Here's a link to the Local Help list and there are two Mentors in Oregon. I'm sure they'd be happy to help!! :D
Local Help - Straight Razor Place Library
:gl: and hang in there.....it'll all come together.
Howard :)
Edit: Just in case....to contact them click on their user name and follow the "private message" links.
Thank you that is big help I am going to have to wait for my face to heal and for my life to slow down a bit. I will make contact with them as soon as I get a chance though.
Do plenty of reading and watching videos between now and your next shave. I've learned tons from just watching others.Quote:
Originally Posted by KingHooper
While you are waiting though, there's maybe a few things we can sort out.
For instance, what is your razor, did you get it honed, how is your stropping? We could maybe help you figure out if it is mainly your shaving technique or whether your razor needs honing, etc.
Definitely one-to-one mentoring is ideal, but there could be a wait and you may as well use the time constructively.
James.
I bet all of us..or most of us had no mentor....I did not. But with the invention of the puter...things got a whole lot easier. Like the old days...get a balloon ,blow it up,put shave cream on it,and shave the balloon nice and close with out popping it. Watch videos of dudes shaving...my wife thought I was gay,watching guys shaving on you tube..but It helped my shaving technique. Watch stropping videos too...nobody can put steel to face for you,we all been there !!! So put on your big boy pants and pay attention !!!
The razor is a Genco De Roma I did the honing(I have been making other types of thing sharp for 30yrs but not razors) I have been practicing my stropping a lot trying to keep the spine and edge on at the same time as well as not adding pressure to the blade. I do think I need more practice at it. As far as the technique god only knows lol. I know I need some help and a lot of practice so I am going to go looking for YouTube of the technique and try and see where I went wrong. As far as those pants nessmuck was talking about I think my wife has them lmoa.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimbo
Lathering I have down thanks to ultrasoundguy and some experimentation over the last 4 months.
Honing like I said I am pretty good at sharpening.
Stropping I pretty sure I still suck at it but I will break out my nylon and beat the crap out of it till I feel confident about it.
Shaving the cheek went great but the edge didn't cut it all in one pass so I think it is lacking at the strop side of this, I am going to try again after my face heals some and just stick to the cheek until I am comfortable.
Thank you all for the help and support(including nessmuck :rofl2:).
As I've suggested to others, I would start with a razor that is honed by somebody who definitely knows how to hone razors. There are a lot of variables (stropping/honing/shaving technique) that can influence how your first shaves go. The more you can eliminate, the better. If the razor isn't honed properly, your shaves will be bad even if you're stropping and shaving techniques are perfect. By having a truly shave ready razor, you'll immediately know if your technique is right, and you'll know within a few shaves if your stropping is right.
Getting one honed by a pro will give you a great baseline to gage how sharp your blade is.
OK OK geez I will send it to Lynn tomorrow lol! Or maybe it is a them hmmmmmmm.Quote:
Originally Posted by MajorEthanolic
Just so everyone knows I am half Sicilian and half Irish /German(don't ask) but all smart ass, and I speak fluent Bull S**t and sarcasm so if I offend anyone please forgive me but it is the DNA talking. :jedi:
OK OK geez I will send it to Lynn tomorrow lol! Or maybe it is a them hmmmmmmm.Quote:
Originally Posted by MajorEthanolic
Just so everyone knows I am half Sicilian and half Irish /German(don't ask) but all smart ass, and I speak fluent Bull S**t and sarcasm so if I offend anyone please forgive me but it is the DNA talking. :jedi:
My first suggestion would be to get your razor honed by someone that knows how. This will give you a bench mark to go by. What stones are you using ?
Norton 4000/8000 wet. Heavy nylon strop w/ .5 ChOx finish on old barber strop(got it from the guy who used to cut my hair when I was a kid roughly 40yrs ago)Quote:
Originally Posted by 10Pups
I have to agree with guy. There are lots of utube videos on the art of shaving with straight razors. Lynn Abrams has one that helped me tremendously. He also has videos on honing from start to finish and stropping. Just don't give up. you'll get the hang of it and when you do it'll just come second nature. good luck.Quote:
Originally Posted by nessmuck
You got all the right stuff. Now the bench mark and some practice.Quote:
Originally Posted by KingHooper
I hope your search for a mentor turns up some help. If not you may be able to use some 1 on 1 pm help. You'll get there just don't be in a hurry. Tell the wife that someday your going to shave her legs :<0)
I sent mine to @cudarunner. There are plenty of people here who can hone razors and get them back to you within a week or so. For learning to shave, this is critical. I thought my razors needed honing after a few weeks until @razorfeld tutored me on stropping. But at least I was starting with well honed razors so I knew my technique was good.Quote:
Originally Posted by KingHooper
So with giant thanks to all of the above people and all morning on YouTube I found want I was doing wrong and fixed it.
I will post it to shave of the day but I do have pics for here as well.
Attachment 184121Attachment 184122Attachment 184123Attachment 184124
You missed the top lip... ha ha ha!
What ever I can't shave it for the rest of the month for Movember! But thanks for noticing, :tameshigiri:.Quote:
Originally Posted by MajorEthanolic
What were you doing wrong that you were able to fix for a better shave?
Wouldn't that make you 1/2 sicilian and 1/4 irish 1/4 German? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by KingHooper
When I started out i got a few cuts too, it makes you concentrate more on where the sections of blade are that you aren't using, i.e. I was using the heel to do my upper lip and the toe cut my cheek. I did quite a bit of reading an watched some videos and got slightly better over the next few months (for clarity I only cut myself properly twice, though I wore quite a few nicks). Then when my technique wasn't terrible I contacted a mentor and discussed my issues over a few weeks or more via P.M and eventually email. I didn't get any face to face mentoring but it still worked.
I did start with a professionally honed blade as per the recommendations as i am not a sharpener of things really, i have a small progression of Hones now and am able to keep an edge on my razors.
I also had a lot of time, i used to spend around 45 mins on a shave, plus stropping etc, now it's around 15 start to finish
It was as simple as a change of angle and it worked perfectly, I was shocked and so happy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razorfeld
Yes, scraping them off hurts...as all beginners seem to discover!:gthQuote:
Originally Posted by KingHooper
Welcome KingHooper, good to know that you have it sorted, I started out the same way you did (have played with all things sharp since I was 11). For some reason it was not as difficult as I thought it would be to get a good shaveable edge. Having said that perfecting the edge is what razors are all about and there is a lot more subtlety in the art than with a knife. I would suggest you send a blade off for a base line if you can, just to compare to your edge. Which every way you go, enjoy.
It's always the simple solution that we arrive at last. It must be human nature to want everything to be complicated.Quote:
Originally Posted by KingHooper
Great job. We are proud of you. And we have the pictures to prove it. Sometimes its just the angle of the dangle that fixes everything. Plus I saw no slice marks from your prior attempt. So your ahead of the game, Smooth shaves my friend ,smooth shaves.
Welcome to the forum and kudos to you for working through your problems and finding a solution! There are quite a few of us located in the Pacific Northwest and I would highly recommend taking advantage of any opportunities to meet up with more experienced shavers. It’s a great way to learn new aspects of the hobby and see a variety of products. Let us know how your journey progresses.
