Ben lurking here for a week or more and thought it was time to make my presence known.

Hello all. My name is Jim, and I'm quite the Noob to "Wet Shaving". I'm one of those who up until a month ago thought shaving in the shower with canned gel and a Mach III was considered wet shaving. Well, I've seen the light!!!

I browsed, searched and read for a couple of weeks. I started off with a couple of Merkur DE razors, a Futur and a LH Classic, a few soaps & creams, a cheap brush, etc.

I am now the proud owner of one of Tony's 4 sides paddle strops (with 3.0, 1.0 & 0.5 CrO2) and a new Dovo Mod # 140 5/8 straight. It's been quite the ride learning how to shave properly over the past couple of weeks, but find myself wishing I had made the plunge years ago.

There are many things I've learned over the past while that will stick in my brain forever, but one of the most memorable is (to quote someone else) "No matter how good you think your shave is, the alum block will put you in your place". Man oh man, there's an eye-opener!!!!

Well, here's to looking forward to a long time searching here and hopefully being able to contribute after a while.

Jim!!