Thread: New Razor and strop ordered!

Great Advice From SRP member Substance: When you receive your razor from SRD just shave. No chance of dulling the razor through improper stropping. Practice stropping after your first shave. Congratulations on your purchase from SRD.

Showed up yesterday finally! Cleaned off the razor blade and checked it out under my loupe; I wanted to see what a shave ready edge looks like! I noticed a difference between the razor honed by Lynn and mine and think I figured out why I am having difficulties. With Lynn's razor, I can tilt the razor under the loupe and not see any shiny line at the very edge at all going along the edge from any angle. On the razors that seem to work OK for me that I have sharpened, they have only a hint of a shiny line at some angles, but not others. Other razors have it more prominent and these are the ones that shave worse. So it looks like some of my bevels are almost set and others are not! Now I have an edge I can compare mine to under the loupe!!! Can't wait to shave with the SR from Lynn!!!

definitely helps to have a bench mark
any sign of a line is no bevel set for sure
hopefully your edges will improves immensely now you have a visual & practical standard to work to.

Really looking forward to my next SR shave and my next honing session now!

I just ordered a Ralf Aust 5/8 from SRD and had my first shave with it yesterday. It was awesome! I had been using a vintage "shave ready" razor for a couple weeks and found myself having trouble getting good shaves and making any real progress. It definitely helps to have a benchmark from Lynn. I now realize that my old razor needs a good honing. I probably dulled it while stropping. Oh well. I guess that's all part of being a newb. Good luck and I hope you enjoy your Aust as much as I do!

I ordered that same strop from SRD. It's a beaut! If you keep rubbing it with the palm of your hand before and after each stropping it will condition quite nicely.

Finally got to shave with the Ralf Aust yesterday! I had been checking the edge under the loupe and comparing to my razors that I have been working on honing and found only 1 had a proper bevel set, so I cleaned that one up a bit. When I tilt the RA back and forth, there is no little white line at the very edge at any angle. With my other razors, they all looked good at some angles, but when I tilted the blades, they all had at least some of the edge showing the thin white line, meaning that the bevel isn't fully set. I used the Ralf Aust for the first N to S pass, then the other razor that had a good bevel set (Challenge Cutlery) for the S to N Pass. I tried using my G. Wostenholm Pipe on the neck since it has a smile, but the bevel wasn't fully set and didn't do much, so I went back to the Ralf Aust and that worked pretty well on my neck! What a difference a truly shave ready razor is to shave with than one that the bevel hasn't been set fully!