Thread: New member

Hi Steve and welcome. " Beings somewhat inflexible and somewhat old school...What's world coming to?"
I like you already! Damn fine to meet you!......so to speak.
So it looks like you have some American, some German and some Sheffield there. Maybe list some names and what order they are in the photos but you can definitely get started out of that collection there.

Don't forget you'll need a strop. Check the beginner section because it gives some good tips on what are good entry level strops. You don't want to buy a real fancy one at first because you will inevitably nick it up. We all do it. It's just part of it so buy one that's a workhorse; good but not exotic. After you've gotten to where you can not nick the crap out of it then by a nice one. There are restored vintage strops on the buy sell trade section of the forum here too. I bought one that is boar hide and I highly recommend that. It is very durable and came with a flax linen strop attached which is also good to have. Stropping is probably the most important skill you'll need to learn early on in terms of maintenance. I'm not one who will say you need to be shaving for at least 50 years before you start honing your own razors. I started in the dark and didn't know any better so I started honing almost immediately but it certainly saves you a lot of agony to tackle that slowly and if you start with one that is truly shave ready first. What would help you the most is if you can find someone in your area that you can meet with who can mentor you on stropping and honing. You sound like a good guy though. And I'm sure you'll get it figured out. Good luck to you and let us know how you do.

Pics are too fuzzy for me to help on my phone. But I'd have to guess you have some basic razors. Look out for rust on the edge. Im sure if you do a search in our library you can find info on buying razors and what to look out for.

The workshopthreads have lots of detailed info on how someone went about restoring a razor. Just keep in mind that razor honing is the last thing to learn. It takes a long time to learn to do properly. Its not knife sharpening.

I know someone would be willing to fix one up for you for little out ofpocket.

Welcome to the forum Steve! I like the story of how you got here. But the best is yet to come. I hope you come up with a good shave ready straight razor soon so you can get going on what I think is one of the funnest hobbies there is. (just to be clear, I'm referring to the straight shaving, not the honing )

I'm the same, fuzzy pics. But agree on the first razor in the second group of razors, from what I see.

I think there are several that look kind of promising. All but the last (and maybe it too) in the first pic and for sure 1 in pic 2 and also maybe 2 and 3 also. Definitely try to salvage one of those notched ones if possible. They make learning the clean up part of shaving a lot easier.

I'm on my computer now and still not enough detail from the pics.
Think of it this way Steve. If you were looking to buy a S.R. on eBay and these were the pics posted, would you buy them? I know most of us would pass. But...

look at the "what are you working on" thread. Check out some pics of razors. You will see detailed close-ups of the faces, back-side, and tang stamps. At a guess (again) I'd say most of them could be turned around easy into shavers. They don't look to be extremely worn or damaged but also don't look like anything special. If I wasn't a gimp with only one hand/arm at the moment I'd fix you up. Maybe someone will offer their time soon and help you out. I know a few of us in the past have taken a large group of razors and fixed up a few to return and keep leftovers just for doing the work. But Mike is too busy right now. lol.

Still, if you want to take on fixing a couple yourself then send them to someone here for honing you would enjoy the experience of learning to use a straight more. Read about restoring in our library. It can be done with some basic hand tools. time is what it takes to do the job the most.

Trying my hand at posting a link. Hope it works...
https://shavelibrary.com/w/Restoring_a_straight_razor

Welcome to the forum. A lot of great advice has already been given. I hope you get your razor honed, and find it to be a great journey to shave nirvana. I do love a very close and comfortable shave.

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Just a note on selecting which razor is probably not worth your time.
Look for rust along the edge on both sides of the razor in the same spot.
Don't bother with those. The rust may have gone all the way thru the steel.

The other test is to look for a cracked blade. We refer to it as the thumbnail test. Someone here may have a link that demonstrates that test.
Those blades are no good.

Hope this helps.

Welcome to the forum! Plenty of good advice.

Meeting face to face is nice, but not always feasible. Maybe you have someone locally that can help. Don't give your razor to anyone that doesn't have a honing background. I recently saw a post where a guy gave his brand new, $100+ razor to the local professional knife sharpener. Blade was wrecked when he got it back.

So here ya go. This is what we need to see to help you with insights on those.

Pics like this:




Those are before and after restoration by the way.