Originally Posted by
BigMallard
From seeing the videos from Lynn I was doing it wrong.
I took a Norton medium Crystolon stone to the razor first, because it was extremely dull. I then went to a King 800, then a Norton Fine India. With each of the stones I established a burr, then eliminated it with a hard plastic art eraser. I made my way up to a natural hard translucent Arkansas stone. From there I took the razor to a pasted strop. The strop was pasted with White rouge. Afterwards I took the razor to a Belgian Shell strop(used antique acquired from my father in-law). First on the canvas side, then the leather, 40 strokes on each piece. After that I tried all the tests including the thumb nail test and the hair "popping" test.
I used Colgate shaving soap with a dabble of HeadSlick (from HeadBlade), to aid with lubrication. I shaved all of my beard in my first go 'round and it felt great. I will never shave with a "159' bladed razor blade again. I love my Straights.