Thread: Confused

Hi all,
I'm newbie to the forum and straight razor shaving.
I have just made a bad purchase of a razor from eBay, turns out to be a cheap Pakistani one.
However I have now got my eye on a Dovo razor with gold etching and imitation mother of pearl handle for
Around £102.00 honed and shave ready.

Now,
To keep my razor in tip top shaving condition I need to buy a few more items, this is where it becomes confusing for me.
I have been looking at a few vid's on YouTube about honing and stropping.
Some people use very fine honing stones to keep there blade sharp whilst others use a strop made from leather and canvess.
I noticed that Lynn Abrahams uses a stone in his DVD instead of a strop.
People also say if I had a strop with canvess i wouldn't need a stone, also if using a leather strop I would need to use a paste as well.

As a newb what would be best for me???

You absolutely need a strop. There is a debate on whether you need canvas/linen. The hones and pastes are for touch ups. When you find that after stropping that the blade just isnt cutting the same anymore thats when you would go to those items.

I would suggest getting a plain leather strop first off. Sometimes people get confused and add paste to their only strop right off the bat. DONT DO THAT.

Just my little info for you

Um, this isn't really a hone review! I suggest you go into the Newbies section and read everything you can. You can start HERE.

Read a lot. Ask a lot of questions, and good luck!

Welcome to SRP Kevin ! I think the best thing to do would be to check out the SRP Wiki here . As you scroll down you will find tutorials on how to get started, what you need to get started and how to use what you get. Pre shave perpetration, shaving and honing as well as links to videos.

A shave ready razor from a vendor known to be reliable would be best to start out with. A strop and later if you decide to hone your own razors look at the options depending on whether you want to just maintain you razor or hone dull ones from scratch. For now I would advise you to do some studying in the Wiki and in the forums. Keep asking questions as they come to you and you'll get the answers.

Hello and welcome!

A strop is just to maintain the edge, not really sharpen it like a stone does. A strop is necessary for shaving, as you should strop the razor before every shave. There is usually 2 parts to the strop, the canvas/linen and the leather. You typically strop on the linen side first, then on the leather, before every shave.

If you strop properly and don't abuse your razor, stropping alone should maintain the edge, so it's shaving sharp, for a while. "A while" is really subjective, but it depends on the person and beard type, but it's roughly a month or two.

For an edge that gets a little dull, that's when you'd use your fine stone, to touch up the edge, and that's what you would've seen Lynn doing in the videos. There's an entire progression of grit (roughness) of stones in honing, but when all you're doing is touching up an already pretty sharp razor you only have to worry about the fine grit stones (i.e. 8000 and up).

Some use a form of abrasive paste, usually from chromium oxide or diamond paste, on a strop for touching up. This serves the same purpose as the fine hone for touch ups. But, the strop you use for this is ONLY for this paste, and not for everyday stropping, so you'd need a seperate strop for it.

Since you're already getting a shave-ready razor, I would only worry about getting yourself a strop right now, since all you'll be needing for a while is edge maintainence. Then once you're more confident in your shaving and stropping should you worry about touching up your razor when it'll begin to dull just a little bit.

I wrote a LOT, sorry! But I'll leave by saying that you should also check out the Wiki on this site, it's full of a lot of usefull information.

Edit: When I starting writing this there were no replies. You guys are fast!

Thanks to each and every one of you for the advice
I will indeed read the Wiki as suggested and I'm sorry if I posted this in the wrong section, will the mods please move if I have
Thanks again guys

welcome kevin