Can't get the blade to cut
I just bought a new Mehaz razor at a local store along with a brush, soap, and a strop. The clerk told me that the blade was ready to shave. Now that I've been to these forums and looked around a bit, it seems that I was probably misled (and ripped off a bit as well), but alas, I wasn't aware of this site until too late.
The issue that I'm having is that, try as I might, I simply can't get the razor to do anything to my face. I've tried a variety of angles, from nearly parallel to the skin all the way to completely perpendicular, but all I ever get is a rasping noise, a scraping feeling, and skin irritation. No hair ever seems to come off in the lather, and my face is just as scruffy as when I started, not to mention much redder.
Are there any obvious points of shaving technique that I might be missing, or do I need to have this razor honed? I've certainly picked up the impression that a factory-honed razor generally isn't up to the task of giving a really good shave, but I'm surprised to find that mine, which thumb-pad testing suggests at least has a knife edge, won't shave at all.