I bought my first straight razor in Sept. 2013 from whipped dog and only shaved with it a probably 5 times before I knocked it off the sink and killed the edge. Then life came along and finally in April I bought a ralf aust from SRP to try straight razor shaving again. I'm getting ready to send it in for a fresh honing. Here are my questions. I'm having a terrible time with shaving the hairs on my chin. I find than it feels like it's tugging and pulling those hairs rather than shaving them. I'm sure it's my newbie technique, I'm just looking for suggestions.
How important is it to learn to keep the razor on the strop when I'm stropping? Every time I try, I end up nicking my strop. I do fine if I totally pick the razor up and then roll it. So my poor man's strop has lots of nicks at both ends. I'm trying to get my technique down before I start using the strop I got from SRP. I'm looking for suggestions on how not to screw up my edge once I get the razor honed.
I want to try learning to hone my own razors. I've read quite a bit about it, and got Lynn's video. I think I'm going to wait on that for a while, but I would like suggestions for refreshing my own razors in between honings.
Eventually I want to get another razor and get my whipped dog razor honed again.
Between my DE's and brushes and soaps, and now straights, my wife thinks I have accumulated to much stuff. She's realized this hobby isn't saving money over cartridges. It is a lot better on my sensitive skin though.