Greetings from a newcomer

Over the years I've managed to accumulate 6 old straight razors and about 2 years ago I attempted to use one with mediocre results. I doubt it was shave ready. I now have one that I think is pretty close and I may try it again soon. The whole sharpening thing has me kind of interested though all I have is a small barber hone and a couple old strops. I know if I intend to get proficient at this it will require some education and some cash, yet it is interesting and already I have learned quite a bit just by reading the posts. Thank you.

Welcome to SRP! There is also a wealth of information in the tutorials in the SRP Wiki here. Tutorials and videos on shaving, honing , stropping and all things straight razor related including a photo rich straight razor data base. If you're going to give shaving anohter go it would probably be best to send one or two out to Lynn or another honemiester. It would give you a truly shave ready razor as well as a benchmark to shoot for in your own honing. Whatever you do here is a post by Lynn to help ease you into proper straight razor shaving. :gl:

Welcome to SRP. and the right way to shave. A few thoughts for you. If you can swing it I recommend sending one of your razors out to one of our honemeisters. Have someone put the right edge on for you from the start. If you do this you won't be trying to figure out if the edge wasn't good or your technique isn't right.

The next would be to set your expectations a little more realistically. Don't expect to get a BBS from the get go. Start with the area between your sideburn and jaw line, and WTG only. Get comfortable with the razor in your hand and the blade against your face. Learn the correct angles and pressures. There is no such thing as "no pressure". You have to have just enough force to move the blade through the whiskers and against the skin. But no more pressure than that. Once you have this down pat, you can add more areas of your face, as well as XG and ATG strokes. I can't tell how much time that will take. Only you can guage that. :gl:

Welcome and listen to the above advice from Jimmy and Dan

welcome to srp

if your hone can put a shaving edge on one of your razors you should consider yourself extremely lucky that the razor was almost there to start with.

the edges of old razors usually have chips and oxidation and require much coarser hones. send one out for honing for sure.

You can send a razor to me if you'd like. I think Utopian is doing some free honing too.

I think I could get a razor shaving with only a barber hone, but that sounds pretty difficult to pull off.

It would be interesting to find out what part of the country you are in.

I think Glen (GSSixgun) will do the honing too for a reasonable fee. It is always nice to get a few razors all nearly perfect so you can play a little and have more fun while your learning.

I'm not sure what Lynn's status is this for the rest of the month.

Alan

No doubt it would be good to get one professionally honed, but I'm a patient guy and I just like to try things myself. It took hundreds of strokes to get that one razor in decent shape and I have a couple more that don't seem to be too far behind. I don't really know how sharp it needs to get, but it cuts hairs easily. It's what I'd call scary sharp.
I made a jig for the hone and it's easy to use. It's a reddish brown color and it's pretty smooth. I should find one a little coarser I think.
Thanks for the good responses.

Can you post a pic of your jig? The point is that when you get one done by a pro you then have a benchmark for how sharp your razor needs to be which in reality is several degrees past scary sharp!:nj It can be one of the best learning lessons you can buy.