Hello everyone,

Well I've always wanted a straight razor and I finally decided to give it a try, just ordered everything I needed a week or two ago. It all arrived safe and sound so I'm pleased to say I'm finally part of the family!

Here's what I got
Presharpened Dovo 5/8 Spike point with ebony scales.(Honed by Mr. Lynn Abrams)
2" linen and latigo strop from Tony Miller
Two sided paddle strop with 1.0 diamond paste and Chromium Oxide Paste. (Also from Tony Miller)
Vufix Best badger Brush
Shaving soap & bowl

I already have 4000 and 8000 grit waterstones so I think that should just about be everything I need to keep me going for awhile.

I had my first shave a couple of days ago and everything went even better than I expected, no nicks worth mentioning just a little bit of razor burn on my neck and jawline. The shave wasn't as close as I would like but that will come with a little practice. I've had a beard for the last couple of years and my face isn't used to being shaved yet so that's probably not helping me much either. The left side of my neck was a little tricky but like I said all I need is a little (probably lots) of practice.

I shaved again this evening and everything went just about like last time untill I did something REALLY STUPID! I was rinsing the lather off the blade and must not have been paying attention because when I pulled the razor up out of the sink the edge of the blade bumped against the bottom of the faucet and duh, put a tiny ding in the edge. Now I dont want to give anyone the wrong impression, It's not like there's a big nasty chip on the edge, I can just barely tell the edge is damaged with the naked eye. I've looked at it with a magnifying glass and It's more like the edge just got flattened out or rolled over a bit, and really, it is quite tiny. My razor is definately out of commission untill I get it fixed so my question is what exactly should I do? Do I need to go back to the waterstones or would the diamond paste and paddle strop do the trick? I could just send it back to Mr. Abrams but I would like to aviod this unless everyone thinks thats the only way to go.