Thread: New Razor Kit

I am about to purchase a Gold Dollar and Philly Strop from Rup Razor. If I use a DMT Extra-Fine Diamond stone with a DMT Extra-Extra-Fine stone in addition to the pasted strop from the kit will I have sufficient honing tools for the razor.

Thank you!

Carl

Welcome to SRP
Have you got any experience with honing?If not ask for professional honing.Nothing worse than trying to shave with a dull razor and at the beginning it's quite easy to damage the blade.

First, welcome to SRP.

Learning to shave with a straight can be a challange, and the information in the SRP's Beginners Guide is the place to start if you have not been there yet. Learning to strop properly will be your most important edge maintenance challenge to start with and requires NO HONE. The kit from RupRazor also includes a free re-hone, and you should use that first if you damage the edge to where it will no longer respond to the strop.

Learning to hone can be a challenge with it's own learning curve. Trying to shave and hone at the same time with one razor is not recommended. I would keep learning to shave with a straight and learning to hone a straight as separate paths for now.

To answer your question... if the edge became damaged beyond what the strop can touch up you would find your hones lacking to restore an edge IMO.

Enjoy and keep us posted on your progress.

Unless the DMT stones go upward to 5k-10k grits, they won't be of much help to you. I've never been able to fine grit sizes on them and as such, have never purchased any.

Thanks for all of the advice. I've read much of the advice on this forum, which is what inspires me to try the move from a DE razor to straight razor.

Although I do not have any experience honing, I have been sharpening my kitchen knives by hand (no guides), so I think I should catch on to the principles of honing quickly even if the technique itself would take a while to acquire.

To my knowledge, which mostly stems from DMT's own information, the Extra-Extra-Fine stone compares to a 8k stone while one guide (probably from this forum or another similar forum) suggested the Extra-Fine stone as a rough stone for setting a bevel (in a manner of speaking). I hope this information is useful.

I have a preference for the diamond stones because they do not need to be lapped for flatness. However, I do not want to waste my time trying to learn to hone with the wrong tools.

As for trying to learn to shave and hone at the same time, should I instead have two razors, one to keep sharp for comparison and one to try and keep sharp through stropping and eventually honing. Since Rup Razor offers one free professional honing, I would certainly use that to ease my learning.

Once again I appreciate everyone's help. I plan to get the razor for Christmas, so I should have some time to learn one my break from, which doesn't start back up until mid-January.

Carl

I am new here as well, and I just purchased my first razor from ebay. If it comes not sharp enough to shave I am going to ship it off to Lynn's shop. That said, there is a nice video on honing that the guys here did at a razor convention that seems very informative.

Cutter

Be careful with the Gold Dollar. It's an excellent razor and Ken does a great job getting it shave ready, but if you look closely you will see it has a "smile" in it. Proper stropping should keep it sharp for a long time, but honing the blade will take some skills beyond honing a razor with a "straight" blade.

I would enjoy the razor and worry about honing down the road.