Thread: FAQ: Information for all straight razor shavers: Shave ready razors

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

"These decisions, if you receive an offer, can be made on an individual basis based on the offer received and the price negotiated. Although your edge can not be guaranteed it is often inappropriate to pay for the cost of a professionally honed blade before a member knows how to strop or shave, either of which often dulls an edge. "

I'm a relative newbie, but this paragraph completely confuses me. Everything I've read here says "when you buy a razor as a newbie, get it professionally honed so you can use your new razor." I read this as saying the opposite. If razors are not typically sold shave-ready, how is the newbie to get started?

I realize that one can kill an edge by bad stropping, but that might be part of the learning curve. Currently, I'm afraid to touch my new dovo to stone until I've successfully honed a cheap razor off ebay. I'd rather be out the $8 I spent on the ebay blade than to do serious harm to my $90 dovo, which Lynn sharpened, and I've been very happy with.

Jim

OK guys in an effort to bring this topic back on course (as I feel it may be risking verging slightly off-course) I shall repost the original post. I shall do so taking out what was spoken of, I shall put in what we discussed and I shall re-organize the layout and format. I shall also start a new thread which it seems has sprung up immediately as an offshoot of this one- one about Vendors. After this I shall give a brief summary of what changes have been made and why they were made. I shall try my *very best* to summarize what has been said so far. THIS IS BY NO MEANS A FINAL DRAFT and I still welcome comments. So without further ado.....

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FAQ: 'SHAVE READY' RAZORS- an explanation

There seems to be a lot of confusion on what shave ready means to dealers, and what a truly shave ready razor means to an experienced shaver. Shave ready according to a dealer (generally concerning new razors) are razors that have been mechanically sharpened (generally on a waterstone type wheel) and then hand honed on a stone of some sort.

So if it is brand new and says "shave ready" why isn’t it REALLY shave ready??

The reason for this is most probably due to the cost of the man hours required to make a razor truly shave ready for our purposes. The cost of workmanship would drive the razor prices up and prevent a company from being as competitive in the marketplace with another company that does not spend this time and energy on finishing, and yet can still call their razors shave ready. These razors are sharp of course, and you could shave with them, so don’t think that you are getting ripped off or lied too.

The difference between a factory shave ready razor and a razor that has been honed by an expert is the experience level, time, techniques as well as equipment spent honing. The fact that their honing is done by hand with no machine grinding makes a VERY large difference in the final edge, and of course the closer detail to the edge that can be observed while hand honing.

The shave from an expertly honed razor will be a much more comfortable, close, and smooth shave than a factory sharpened TI, DOVO, or what have you. This means little or no pulling of your facial hair and less razor burn, as well as a marker for the time when you yourself start honing.

How to get a truly shave ready Razor

If you buy a razor from Classic Shaving they offer honing services via Lynn Abrams which really makes it convenient to get a brand new shave ready razor that will make your learning curve easier. Straight Razor Place also has a Buy/Sell/Trade forum where it is possible to buy a used and/or refurbished razor that has also been hand honed and is truly shave ready. This will allow the new shaver to get a quality straight razor that is really ready to shave with. This option generally cost less money than a factory new razor which is not really shave ready according to our high standards.

So what’s the big deal?

The bottom line is, at least for your first razor whether new or used, make sure it is truly shave ready by having it hand honed by an expert, this can make or break your shaving experience and WILL show you what sharp truly means. We have seen many new users give up on straight razor shaving because they tried to start with a razor that wasnt really shave ready resulting in painful and inadequate shaves.


OTHER QUESTIONS:

• Who can make my razor shave ready?
• Why do some razors require more honing than others?

I have taken a fair whack out of the original in order to create the Vendors link. I have also turned the questions at the end into links to their related question. Click them and try them out!

I have also removed personal recommendations and opinions expressed in the original post. The following is a *brief* summary of what has been discussed so far which should allow some posts to be deleted at a later date....

heavydutysg135 and Sticky both commented they were happy with the original comments as they were. Azjoe commented that it should be pointed out that the vendors list is not a complete list and are not preferred recommendations. Some members were removed from the original post due to inactivity. AFDavis11 expressed concern over the vendor descriptions.It was felt unfair for opinions to be expressed on the work of some vendors. As a result the vendor thread only contains information on what the vendor does and how they can be contacted. On later reflection it was discussed that we should have a seperate thread for vendors, which was seconded and the thread has begun.

*Phew*

I think it looks really good... here's a couple picky things you may want to fix:

1. 1st paragraph: the sentence "Thiers Issard for instance use Belgian waterstones." doesn't really add anything in my opinion, so I suggest it be deleted. If you decide not to delete it, then change "use" to "uses".
2. 4th paragraph: the sentence "This means little or no pulling of your facial hair, and less razor burn, as well as a marker for the time when you yourself start honing."... I'd suggest deleting the comma after the word "hair".
3. 5th paragraph: in the sentence "Straight Razor Place also have a Buy/Sell/Trade forum..." change "have" to "has".

Lastly, I'd put "tbd"s at the end of each question so we remember to fill them in when those FAQs are completed.

Joe-

1. Done

2. Done

3. Done

And lastly I was planning on leaving the questions in on the final draft of the FAQ. If you click on them you'll see they link to the related FAQ. Thats where the vendor info I took out of the original post went....

I will go with the majority on this but I think it works better like this.

So if there are no objections, I think it's ready to publish. Any nay votes?

Actually i'd like us to consider changing the title of the thread. Its purely cosmetic but I would prefer;

FAQ: Why is my razor not 'shave ready'?

or something similar. I believe the title of the thread should match both the contents of the thread and the question that Joe Newbie is likely to be asking himself.

Originally Posted by sidneykidney

Actually i'd like us to consider changing the title of the thread. Its purely cosmetic but I would prefer;

FAQ: Why is my razor not 'shave ready'?

or something similar. I believe the title of the thread should match both the contents of the thread and the question that Joe Newbie is likely to be asking himself.

Or, "Is the razor I got (or plan to get) really shave ready?

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

Yes, I was waiting for a "second' in the form of a comment because I'm uncertain myself.

Given the little that I know I would prefer Robert Williams to be described as "A Master craftsman that produces custom and semi-custom straight razors"

I know I'm treading on thin ice and will probably offend someone very important but I believe that if Bill Ellis can be described as a "Master Craftsman" that Robert Williams can and should be described with the same verbage.

In my perfect world (where everyone else does all the work I should add) a thread like this would have a link to show pictured examples of the artists/vendors razors.

That way you'd have some frame of reference on what a Bill Ellis razor was like and what a Robert Williams razor was like.

To be perfectly blunt, without seeming, well self rightous, I'm almost offended by the description of Robert Williams as selling "a selection of rare and hard to find razors".

Perhaps this description is a little old?

I agree with Alan on this point. Robert is a very competent craftsman but to my limited knowledge he is not a collector.

Originally Posted by Nickelking

I'll second that, while it's good to have some honers listed it kind of relegates everyone else to second tier, if there is to be a honers directory I think it should be kept separate and in the vendors' forum. Unless of course the vendor has the explicit support of the forum. You could end up with people being leery of buying a shave ready razor in B/S/T.

Otherwise a separate list in the vendors' forum would be appropriate.

I also agree with this.