Thread: First shave, advice needed

I finally did it. I have been using a DE for the past year or so. I recently bought 2 straights. 1 is a Shumate that I honed on a very slow cutting stone, and 1 is a shave ready Boker King Cutter. Of course, I had to start out with the Shumate bc I honed it.....made a WTG pass on my right cheek and it hardly cut any of my 1 day stubble, so I then tried the Boker, which did the pretty much the same thing. I then proceeded with the Boker which cut down the hair on the right side of my neck decently, the Shumate cut a little off of the left side, but the Boker did better. I didn't get any nicks or cuts until I hit the chin area where I culdn't cut through any of the hair, so I got a little sloppy and got a couple bleeders.
My prep was good, as I did my normal routine of showering, washing my beard with hot soapy water and then applying MB soap for a couple minutes while I stropped the 2 razors.
My main question is this: do I need to apply pressure when using a straight? I've become so used to DE's that I was trying to let the razor do all the work.
P.S. I had to finish up with my Merkur 38C to clean up all the missed areas.

What makes you think that your Boker is shave ready? I can tell you with close to 100% certainty that your shumate is not.

The Boker was purchased as shave ready from another member. As far as the Shumate goes, I know it's my first honing job, but the edge looks good to the eye, looks good under the microscope, and shave the hair right off my arm. I think it was my angle, I was holding the razor too flat on my face, without realizing that I should pull the spine away from my cheek a little bit. I have been practicing on my arm and when I hold it too flat, nothing gets cut, but when I angle it more, the hairs go flying.

Don't forget that your needed level of sharpness differs from other members.
I have had a few razors from other people that were 'shave ready', but they just weren't good enough for me.
Consider getting a finer (or different)stone or pasted strop. It revolutionized my view of straight shaving from quite frustrating to an absolute joy

Originally Posted by nickyspaghetti

Don't forget that your needed level of sharpness differs from other members.
I have had a few razors from other people that were 'shave ready', but they just weren't good enough for me.
Consider getting a finer (or different)stone or pasted strop. It revolutionized my view of straight shaving from quite frustrating to an absolute joy

Good to see you here, ShaveC! Welcome!
Good points Nicky.
My first "shave ready" I think was - for the guy who honed it. For me it was about halfway there. I have a tough wirey beard with some interesting growth patterns and I have to have a very keen edge (and a stiffer grind helps, too). Everybody's different. The straight experience is one of a lot of experimentation until you learn what works with your razor, your hone, your strop and your face.
Good luck!

PS +1 on Pasted Strops (.5 and .25micron diamond paste works for me)

Thanks guys, I honed the Shumate on a very fine stone (Arkansas oilstone). I have a paddle strop with 3 pasted sides, 0.5 Chromium oxide, 1.0 and 0.5 diamond. How should I proceed in using the pasted sides to get a keener edge?

I have experimented a bit and have had success using the following
Norton 8k and .5 paste
translucent arkansas and .5 paste
coticule and .5 paste
coticule alone
Norton 8k and a variety of different pastes

These are a variety of finishing methods I find have worked for me, depending on the razor. I have found 1 razor that all methods work for and about 20 that only work with 1 or 2 methods.
I find the hone finish on a coticule more reliable than others, but not always sucessful and paste finishes less robust.
I think by my experience there is only one solution and that is the following.......

Buy one razor from every member, buy every type of hone you can find, buy every paste you can find.
once this step is taken, become a scientist and devote your life to
ours finding out exactly the science behind these tools!

No really I found that the best jump in honing I made was experimentation as I find that experience and variety helped endlessly to find the right razor, stone, paste strop combinations.
That doesn't mean don't ask advice, it is always helpful, just remember that although you may well have the same bathroom, water, soap, brush, razor, strop, paste, stone etc, one thing that is always different is the face, so see what works for you.
My face is so so differentfrom many described here and it grows in allsorts of directions and angles not accounted for so far. This is something you will have to keep at to get right, but believe me it is worth it in the end
PS sorry DEwey, I realised this was some duplicated info from you, but I spent so long writing due to a 48 hour awake peiod travelling that I couldn't bear deleting it!

I'm not the best at using pastes so I hope another member will chip in. I use 1 and 0.5 micron diamond and have a few others I don't use much.
I have them on hanging strops against many users advice as I haven't got round to mounting them on a flat board. the process is much similar to normal stropping, albeit with care to avoid over stropping. Search about pastes and I'm sure you will find others reccomendations but I use about 5 after a coticule and 10 after the norton on the 0.5 micron.
I've given up experimenting for a while on these though to test my coticule I got recently