Well, after several weeks of lurking and reading everything I could find, I finally dove in to the world of straight razors.



I bought a new Double Arrow (?) off ebay... and then of course, I needed a strop, so I bought a red latigo from The Well Shaved Gentleman. I bought Lynn's DVD, because it seems to be the highest rated DVD since Casablanca. And I got some green powder from ChrisL (I already had shaptons for my knives).

Then, while checking out stuff on ebay, I figured I'd bid on a lot of poorly identified razors for sharpening practice. (I have a lot of experience sharpening knives, and had my local barber, who still does shaving, and with straights, no less, show me how he sharpens his, so I figured I'd give it a try).

$25 got me seven razors, from top to bottom:

Cleveland Cutlery Co. Solingen
O Friedrich (?), Wald Germany Hand Forged
JA Henckels Twinworks, Soligen Germany (Marked on opposite Graef & Schmidt)
Filarmonica Double Temple.
what looks like Shumar Razor Co (it's a bit rusty, but once had gold wash)
something with writing I can't read, a crown symbol and, unfortunately, a chip in the blade
and a Bengall (not shown).

The Cleveland solingen, the Henckels, and the Bengal, are in amazing shape. A little tarnish, but no rust and perfect scales. The Filarmonica metal is fine, but the scales are warped. Shumar: broken scales and rust. And so on. Winter projects, obviously.

Of course, since I am going to learn to hone, I ran out to Radio Shack and bought the cheapie illuminated 60-100 microscope.

I honed up the Double Arrow, and since I had the stones out, went to work on the Bengall. Both of them took a really sharp edge quickly (shapton 4000, 8000, translucent hard Arkansas for the Bengall to see if it made any difference. [it seemed to polish it considerably as seen under the 'scope -- but was it sharper? I'm not sure. I'll have to do a more scientific shave test later on]. Then onto the strop.

I'll probably make a trip to Home Despot tomorrow for the stuff to make a paddle for the .5 powder.

I already have a passable badger brush and shave cream. Tomorrow may be the big day for my first straight razor shave -- although I may wait for Lynn's DVD to arrive for the full-on instructions!

Anyway, this is a long way of saying thanks, to all of you on SRP, for your helpful posts which helped me to make the jump into straights. I've always been intrigued by straights, and you made it seem possible and much less scary to make the jump!

Cheers,

cassady