Thread: Shaved straight for 6+ months, ready to toss it.

Send it out for honing.

Test your stropping when you get it back by doing the first shave without stropping (ask the honer to strop it for you, most probably will anyway). Strop it before the second (or third) shave and see if the edge gets better or worse.

Good luck and keep trying.

Originally Posted by philaudio

Another thing: even with a disposable, I'm not able to shave against the grain ever. ATG=horrible irritation and red bumps always and every time. I can't even imagine what ATG with the straight razor would do. Does this indicate a certain type of facial hair that needs to be treated a special way with regards to the straight razor?

I too have had a bad experience with ATG. I did it three weeks ago and the bumps are still visable and is a major turn off to see being I never had them in my life. I will not do my neck for a while because of this so I clean up a DE. Don't give up so quick. Stay with the safe areas until you resolve the problem your experiencing.

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

Can I have your stuff?

Ya gotta love the sympathy ya get on this site.
Dannyr

Wow, thank you, everyone, for all your responses. I suspect that you are absolutely right about the sharpness of the blade. I never had it professionally honed, I was just told by my wife that the salesman said it was shave ready (which I have come to understand is meaningless).

igitur55, thank you for confirming my suspicions specifically, nice to meet someone with the same blade. It looks like it should be fine and I've read that Thiers Issard is good but yeah, it says right there on the blade "carbon steel" which makes it harder to hone/sharpen.

About my stropping: I think I'm actually fairly good at it. I've got a nice smooth motion for both sides compared to the audio samples I found in the wiki and my strop is a Dovo strop, so I don't think the problem lies with the product itself.

One thing: I think I may have overpasted my strop. Since looking at the examples in the wiki, I've workd a lot more paste into the strop than I think I should have. It's still leathery, but it now has a shine and a bit of a waxy feel. Have I ruined it? Can I just wash it off?

And yes, I think I need more acidic soap, I'm not sure that the oil does much.

Again, thanks, MY FAITH IS RENEWED!!!!

Oh, you pasted your strop. Well, you can only take your razor to a pasted strop to "refresh" the edge so many times. How many depends on you and the razor, but eventually the pasted strop will reach a point where it can do no more and you'll have to go to the stones.

That said, probably not your problem, but something to think about in the future. My advice: send the blade out and buy a separate "clean" strop. Then use the pasted strop to refresh the honed edge once you get it back. Then buy a second "shave ready" razor so when you have to send your first one out, you don't have to miss out on any straight shaving goodness.

Originally Posted by Leighton

Oh, you pasted your strop. Well, you can only take your razor to a pasted strop to "refresh" the edge so many times.

I do not believe he is using an abrasive paste, sounds like the dovo conditioning paste.
It is a terminology problem, we use the term in a very narrow sense.
In any case I don't think too much conditioning is an issue.

any idea what type of paste you used? if it was simply a conditioning paste then you should be able to get it off, but if it was an abrasive paste then it is set as a pasted strop. not that that is necessarily a bad thing, pasted strops are great but you do need a plain one.

what i would do if it is simply too much conditioning paste is wipe it down really well with a towel and then rub your palm on it until things get back to normal.

Originally Posted by gugi

I do not believe he is using an abrasive paste, sounds like the dovo conditioning paste.
It is a terminology problem, we use the term in a very narrow sense.
In any case I don't think too much conditioning is an issue.

Thanks for reminding me newbies to the art don't use the same terminology we do. Conditioning paste makes much more sense. Hehe, I imagine if he did use Crox he wouldn't have a dull blade.

Originally Posted by gugi

I do not believe he is using an abrasive paste, sounds like the dovo conditioning paste.
It is a terminology problem, we use the term in a very narrow sense.
In any case I don't think too much conditioning is an issue.

Right, searched on the net and that's exactly what it is: Dovo conditioning paste. In which case I can just wipe off the excess (if any) and I'm good to go right?

Wow, I don't know what I would do without the internet. No one could tell me any of these things at the shop.

Yeah, SRP has some great members.. lots of knowledge and goodwill here (respect to Utopian and Gugi for their generous offers). Let us know how it goes once it gets honed.