Thread: Discouraged...

Read through the Buy/Sell/Trade forum here or post a "want to buy". There are usually a number of shave ready blades for sale. For one-stop shopping, I would check thewellshavedgentleman.com or vintagebladesllc.com. Both Tony and Jim are members here and are great vendors to deal with.

Jordan

what kind of quality should i look for? i guess to be more specific, which is the better place to spend money, razor ( I assume) or strop? My limited budget is well...limited ..however I realize ebay is not the place to look. What do you guys think would be a fair start up budget?

I would get a basic hanging strop to start with. You will probably nick it while learning. Once you've got the hang of stropping you can upgrade and use the cheaper one for travel. For a razor, I would look here for a basic blade say around $35-$50. Those two items will start you off. Tony Miller is on vacation for another day or two, but I think you can get a strop from him for $30 or less. So you'll probably need about $65-$80 to start. Then next month or so you may want a finishing hone or pasted strop. I can't remember the costs on those.

Jordan

I strongly believe that almost everyone has the potential to sharpen their own razors; but just like everything worth doing it will take some work to get good at it. If you want instant gratification then straight razor shaving is not for you, but if you are willing to put some work into it then you will be fine. As long as the razor is honed well initially and properly stropped every time that it is used you should be able to go for a long time before the razor needs to be touched up (at least several weeks, probably several months); pasted paddle strops are a very easy way to touch up your edges that are becomming dull and will greatly extend the time that you will need between honings (my friend has been going for over a year on only a Tony Miller 4-sided pasted paddle strop and one razor that I honed for him). It is a lot easier to keep a sharp razor sharp than it is to sharpen a razor from scratch. The honing "horror stories" that you hear that are probably discouraging to you are mostly from people learning to hone for the first time on an eBay razor that is as dull as a butter knife. Start with a razor that you know is shave ready, learn to shave properly with it, then learn to maintain the edge which should be easy. You can worry about honing the very dull razors (which are much more difficult) later on down the road if you decide that you want to get into that.

David