Thread: Common Newbie experiences

....I have learned a lot from my few experiences. The sage advice you experienced guys have given is sinking in.... A healthy combination of reading, watching, doing...repeat, repeat, repeat...

Today I am at work sporting my first ever shave that was entirely produced by the sr!! Feedback is starting to reach my brain.....from the strop, from the feel on my face, differences in approach on the tough spots.......

Cant wait to get up in the morn! And to think, about a week ago I posted my first thread about throwing my stuff in the trash can!
Jim

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

I would give my right arm to eliminate the term "shave-ready". Instead I would apply the term "strop-ready".

If you believe, as I do, that a razor's edge is actually applied with a strop and not by honing then you can see lots of opportunities for the classic problem of "but it's supposed to be shave-ready". Really? How did it get from honed to shave-ready? In the mail? Did the postman strop it for you? No, probably not.

I was reading an instructionable (sic) on knife honing (to a level of shave-readiness) yesterday and it said to oil a leather belt and strop the knife on the oiled leather for "as long as your patience would allow". I thought that was funny, and yet, deeply important.

Not to be disagreeable, but just calling it as I experienced it, Here is a post I made back in the end of September which is relevant to the above statement. OTOH, as I typed the last sentence it occurred to me that Lynn probably stropped the three razors mentioned in my linked post after he honed them.

So rather then disproving your theory my experience may reinforce it (if the assumption that Lynn stropped the three razors is correct). In this post back in August I "finally did the parlor trick" and that was through stropping after honing. I have your thread "Interesting article" in my subscribed threads and the fourth post down with mparker relating his experience with improving the edge via stropping had been the lead for my subsequent practice. That is how I 'did the parlor trick'.

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

Yes, honed blades are not necessarily stropped. There is also little evidence to suggest that a blade stropped on Monday and mailed to me arriving on Thursday is still "shave-ready". If it is its probably only good for a few shaves.

Notice how often we have new members say a blade was great for the first few shaves?

Woops! Looks like I replied to a deleted post . . . oh well. I'll leave the reply here anyway.

Here is where my experience with the three pre-honed blades differs from your statement above. They arrived sharp and the first time I shaved with them I did not strop before the shave. As noted above, assuming Lynn stropped them after honing, if that proves anything it is that they sat on a vendor's shelf and traveled through the mail remaining 'shave ready'.

So far they have each been used for four or five shaves and are still 'cutting it' (pun intended). Of course I have been stropping them before and after each shave (other then the first shave)_giving them 50 round trips on linen and lately 30 on leather (used to do 50 & 50) before the shave and 20 on horse post shave. No touch ups with paste on these yet.

Geez we take this stuff seriously , don't we ? (speaking for myself)