Thread: Help! Totally new

Hello guys, brand new to the art of the straight razor. Just went to the antique store and found a Cattaraugus Green Lizard 131 C straight razor in seemingly great condition for 50$. Little to no rust, esspecially on the blade. Besides that I have a handmedown badger hair brush. I don't know where to start. I don't know what I need to get in order to start shaving. I don't think the blade is quite sharp enough to begin shaving just yet, but there are no nicks in the blade so does it need honed? I don't want to pay excessive amounts of money. What strop do I need? And with paste or not because I literally don't know. What cream do you guys recommend? Do I need a whetstone? And if so what grain? Is the Green Lizard a quality razor? Thank you guys.

Welcome. First send the razor out to be professionally honed. Next check the library. Plenty of info. Ask questions. We all love to help. You will need a Strop.
Van Der Hagen sold in drug stores makes a starter kit. Soap, bowl and brush.
Good luck.

Hi. Welcome to Straight Razor Place!

Cattaraugus made good razors, like most vintage. American Straight razors.

I would send the razor to a pro honer to have it sharpened. Where are you from? There are members at SRP from all over the world. Your location would help with recommendations. Save the honing until after you have the basics down.

You will need a strop, soap or cream, and probably an astringent. Maybe a brush depending on the condition of yours. The strops at Straight Razor Designs would be a good place to start. You can easily replace components in case of damage or you want to upgrade. My recommendations of soap/cream would be the Palmolive soap stick, Tabac soap, Arko soap, or D. R. Harris soap.

Firstly, welcome to the forum and secondly read the library section of the forum as mentioned previously. The library will answer a lot of your question and give you more to ask.

Posting photos of both sides of your razor open will help others answer some of your questions.

More than likely your razor will need to be honed as none of the vintage razors I have bought at antique stores had a shave ready blade. Sending it out to a reputable honer is the easiest and cheapest way to do it for a beginner. To hone a razor to shave ready takes quite a bit of time, effort and expense for hones for a beginner to learn.

Allow yourself about 3 months/100 shaves to get the hang of shaving with a straight razor. It is not as easy as it looks so have patience and go slowly. Rushing things usually leads to nasty things happening.

I'd suggest a shave cream and not a hard puck of soap to learn to lather with as creams lather easier, usually.

Good luck.

Bob

Hi! Thank you for your response. I'm from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area

I would say check out Straight Razor Designs for most of your needs. Their strops are about as good as you can get. They also have soaps, bowls, and anything else you would need. Illinois strops are also OK to start with. There's a lot of soap options out there, I haven't found a bad one yet. So long as I do my part and build a proper lather the soap has done it's job. I rotate between Mama Bear's, Captain's Choice, and Col. Conk soaps depending on what scent I want for the day.

I'd hold off on hones for now, and send it to someone that hones straight razors. Preferably someone from the classifieds here, I've seen a few folks send their razors off to knife guys and find out the hard way honing a knife and a straight razor are two different things. The blade may not have any nicks, but the edge needs to be perfect on a microscopic level to shave comfortably. It's surprising how much a teeny tiny little microchip or two will cause a blade to tug and pull.

Don't worry about pastes either. If you send it out to someone that knows what they're doing it'll come back sharp enough to shave with. New guys are also prone to damaging an edge by stropping poorly, paste will just amplify the problem. Once you know how to strop well and improve your edge you can assess your want for paste, but it isn't a necessity by any means. Most of my razors are honed on a natural stone then taken straight to linen and leather, they never see any paste.

If you want to learn to maintain the blade yourself after sending it to be honed, I would start by picking up a jeweler's loupe (30x is fine) and a Naniwa 12K or a barber's hone. Learn to use it to refresh the edge when the blade starts to tug. It's important to have it pro-honed so you know what shaving sharp feels like and what you're aiming for. Once your edge is shaving sharp it won't take much to keep it that way, just a few strokes on the hone to bring the edge back in line unless you drop it or otherwise ding the edge on something.

Welcome to SRP!!!

As you have seen, there are a lot of great folks and tons of info here. Do check out the library as others have said.
I can't add much to what's been said. But personally, Id buy a starter kit from Straight Razor Designs or in our Buy/Sell/Trade section. There are a few there right now. And then get your vintage razor honed by a professional. As a beginner, odds are you're going to mess up something on that razor. We all did it.

Enjoy and have fun!

Originally Posted by Trubino10

Hi! Thank you for your response. I'm from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area

It would be good if you added your location to your profile.

There may be a member near you that can give you some one on one instruction. Hopefully they will see your post and possibly contact you.

Alternately here is a list of Mentors some of them may be near your.

SRP Staff - Straight Razor Place Forum

Bob

Welcome to SRP, you have already had lots of good advice here.

Spend some time in the library and beginners section here at SRP. The more you read the more questions will be answered and the more questions will be raised. I know I have asked some silly questions, but when it comes to putting sharpened steel to your face there is no such thing as a silly question.

The main thing is patience here. I know how eager you might be to get started but take your time and you are much more likely to get better results. Look on YouTube but take care as to what you watch there are some bad ones out there too. You can get a feel for which ones are good by looking in the comments section.

Good luck with your journey and enjoy.

Here is a link to all you need to get going, at a very fair price

http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...zor-pouch.html

Or here

http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...trop-soap.html