I'm new to using a straight razor. I'm on about my 5th day using a nice new Dovo. I've already got semi-decent honing skills from being taught how to hand-sharpen a knife by my father and a scientific razor by my mother (she was a research scientist and once taught me how to hone a blade by hand that was being used to cut out super-thin slices of samples for use in microscopy) and my stropping technique seems to be okay too since I'm not having hard time in general with the shaving itself.

In fact, my cheeks & chin have never looked better. Even late at night they are baby smooth. However, I am having trouble on my neck, specifically on either side of my adam's apple. Now I know that part of this is that I've got a rather large adam's apple to begin with. The other trouble is that unlike the rest of my beard, the hair on either side of the adam's apple doesn't grow in a normal up and down grain. Instead on either side it grows sideways away from the adam's apple. That's actually one of the reasons I've never tried to grow a full beard because I always had this odd bald patch running vertically down the ridge at the midline of my throat!

Any suggestions on how to best shave those spots on my throat? I shave down with the grain on my beard and up against the grain as well. It leaves me baby smooth everywhere else, but just doesn't cut it on the sides of my neck. I've tried going sideways with and against the grain at that location by holding the blade vertically in relation to my face but it's very awkward and that's the only time I ever really manage to knick myself.

I'd love to hear what people here suggest because I've already picked up a lot of good information by reading throguh the other posts in the forum. For example, this forum already helped me in picking out the first "new" razor that I've purchased.