Thread: Fell into straights and I'm breaking the rules!

First post BTW...I've been lurking awhile.

Recently on a trip to Vegas, the wife picked out one of those intro to shaving kits from AOS. The one with the oil, badger brush, sandalwood cream and aftershave. It was a pretty good gift, but I felt like a kid driving his dad's Lexus - outclassed. So...not being the patient type, in a mere month I now have 4 razors and all the associated paraphernalia to go along with it, including a 4K/8K norton.

Now...this is where I start breaking the rules, don't read this if you have a weak stomach.

I decided to hone my own razor instead of getting it shave-ready! I also got over zealous and shaved my whole face on the first time. I picked up my first from a flea market and went for it, honing and all. Turns out, it went well. I think. And that seems to be the problem. In my industry we have a saying that noobs don't teach noobs, but I'm going to give a piece of advice anyway. Might as well follow all the great instruction here on this site, if not only to learn the correct way to shave with a str8, but so there is no doubt in your mind about your getting the correct shave. One of my razors is off for honing soon. I've learned my lesson.

That's it. These are three of the razors it got BTW. Henry Graves, 2 Robeson's (only one pictured) and a W&B.

Take it easy.

Looks like a nice set started there

I also kind of jumped in and honed my own blades right off the bat... with less than BBS results haha. But that soon changed as I worked my way around the site and picked up pointers as I went along.

It's good to get a known shave ready razor to compare your own results.

Welcome to the site and enjoy

Nice set! You've got some really nice looking razors there.

Welcome to SRP. Nice razors and good that you sent one off to have it honed. When ut gets back you'll have something to judge your own efforts with when you take the others back to the 4/8.

Welcome to SRP and enthusiasm is good. I doubt that most of us got a perfect start into straight shaving and we let our enthusiam take us where we went.

Welcome to straight shaving and SRP.

Pabster

Welcome to SRP.

You know, this is really kind of an "Act of Independence" art that seems to be practiced by a lot of independent thinking/behaving people.
It is no suprise that you broke the "rules" and set out on your own using this information as guidelines.

I have never taken a formal poll, but I am pretty sure that almost everyone here has gone faster at some aspect of this than they should, then ate crow, came back with a bunch of lessons learned, warned the newbs, then the newbs ingore it and go off on their own......

See the pattern here?

So you decided to get into honing right away. The worst that is going to happen is you have to send your razor to someone to correct your mistakes, and the best thing that is going to happen is you learn to hone.

As long as your frustration level doesn't make you quit, I see no harm at all.

Good for you.

David

Welcome. Good luck. and remember to ENJOY your shave. that's why I do it

There are not really any rules..

Just guidelines that will maximize your chances for success.

Good for you. I honed my first razor (an ebay special) on a barber hone because that was all I had and I didn't know any better.

Also, each of us are breaking the rules by using a straight razor. If you don't think so, just tell a few people you now shave with a straight razor.

Hi Tonybuddha,
Welcome to SRP.
That,s a fine set of razors you have there!
Don't be bashfull about your learning curve-we all learn at our own pace and in our own way.
I too started by wanting to learn it all too fast!-I bought a real shave ready razor-then a 10k hone-and set about buying razors from ebay.All against the rules!
Learning to shave and learning to use a hone + strop is what i found most enjoyable when i look back.I now have 5 shave ready razors which I rotate thru the week and can bring back a dull edge to "shave ready" at will,both stainless & carbon steel.
All the above could not have happened without gleaning valuable knowledge from the vast database that SRP holds along with friendly advice from members.
You are in the right place!!
Keep goung and enjoy your shaving!
Kind regards
Noggs