I want to let everyone know this forum rocks and has been a huge help for me. I purchased a crown razor off ebay a while back for practice and you guys helped me with some questions about it. About two weeks ago I bought a 6/8 dovo red bismarck from SRD along with an Illinois # 835 strop, and some bay rum soap with a Vulfix boar bristle brush from classic shaving. I don't have a very thick beard, but felt I would like the feel of a larger blade. First shave took about 15min and aside from the soap burning the hell out of my face I got a BBS shave and no nicks doing a three pass (wtg,xtg,atg) shave. I was not expecting this to be my first experience with a straight, but with the advice from this site it was possible for me. I am bald by choice so I had to test the razor on my head the same evening. This was much more time consuming but I did a several wtg passes which yielded a good result all around. Now I'm two weeks in and shave my head and face every other day and have had only one nick, well, laceration is probably the appropriate term, (sneezing while shaving is not cool) and all my shaves have been BBS. My only question thus far is; what is the best choice in a hone simply to refresh an edge? My razor still shaves like day one but I don't want to spend $20 every couple months to have it honed. Much thanks!