Hello everyone, I have always been fascinated with straight razor shaving since I was a kid. I watched my dad and my grandfather get shaved in the barber shop in the 60's and 70's. I always said that when I get old enough I would have the barber shave me, well in my teens and 20's I didnt do much shaving,in my 30 I got serious and took it on myself , so I thought ok when Im 40 Im gonna get a shave at the barber shop, well I never got the nerve. Now at 46 years old I find that there are not to many barber shops that will shave you and if they do it's almost as much as getting a haircut. So I decided I want to finally get into this and do it myself.I want to get away from disposable raors and disposables that are now costing me almost $5 each. I tend to spend way to much money when I get into something new, I could easily see myself spending $800 on a fancy razor but Im gonna try and not do that this time.

I have been reading here for about a week now and learned a lot already, I have checked out the classifieds but Im not comfortable with buying a used razor. From all the research I have done so far I see myself keep going back to the Dovo 1516 Special with tortise shell handle for around $130. Now I understand that Im not going to take this razor out of the box and start using it, so how do you learn to sharpen or hone and how do you know if something is shave ready?