Thread: Shavette shaving vs Straight razor shaving

Having used both and written on this subject many times before....

The disposables edge comes from a wider angle on the blade and is stainless steel. So its cutting action is superb for 4-5 shaves, but having to maintain that angle on a fixed straight razor would take a funky looking straight razor.

Now, two issues with your straight razor that I will take a stab at:
1) It isn't sharp enough for your beard. 10 passes on a pasted strop may have helped out your situation and make the blade feel smoother and cut better. I recieved a few straight razors from honers and although they were shave ready, they just didn't do it for me. After 10 passes on my pasted strop. .50 crom ox, it felt like a different razor and its feel was more in line with my preference. Why: Sometimes there is metal hanging on the fin after a honing and this can creating a slight catch and pull action when shaving, thus it doesn't shave smoothly enough for some people. The pasted strop either realigns these pieces or takes them off.

2) Technique does play an important role in getting a better shave. Shorter strokes in tight areas tend to be more effective than longer strokes. All this takes time and some trial and error.

I hope this helps and good luck!

Pabster

I do not have a pasted strop to try your suggestion. I bought a set of Naniwa stones : 3K, 8K and 12K. I was told not to use the 12K until the razor is sharp. With your advice of using a pasted strope, i tried the 12 K stone and it made a huge difference. It felt much sharper and it did not tug as much.. Or did it ? I shaved this morning after using 20 passes on the 12K. Not sure if this is enough. It gave me a nicer shave, but not as nice as the TI though. Perhaps i should send an email to TI to get their tricks. I wonder if they used pasted stropes. The flyer that came with the razor is promoting TI pasted stopes...

When i decided to get a straight razor, i had read on honing and from my reading, i thought that 12 K stone would be the finishing stone i would need... Well, well well. Let me shave a couple more times with the Dovo and see how i get used to it or if i need to consider buying pasted strope. I did not realize that honing was such a challenging experience and that it would require so much equipment (expensive too) to get a nice and comfortable shave.

Originally Posted by MichelG

...I now understand why you need two straight razors. One needs to always be sharp so that when you hone and try it out, if it is not shave ready, you can continue with the other razor and take care of the edge later...

Now, my next task is to learn to hone to bring the Dovo in line with the TI.

not exactly right, I forgot who said this, but I read it in this forum...a blade need to rest for 24hour approx before you use it again, I think that's the reason why you need 2 straight.

maybe I miss something, what I understand is that, you don't need to buy stone in order to get a good comfortable shave, a good soap soap, brush, razor and strop is all you need...depend on the strop, I use Filly's 2 sided, one rough has crox with it and the smooth, with this I have comfort shave, if the blade is a bit pulling (after 2 weeks or so) I immediately have it lap around 20 times on the pasted strop, my razor is shave ready and is not dovo or TI, the point is that, razor is just a slab of steel which has been designed to cut whiskers, while the material of the blade is fairly important to bring the edge to proper sharpness, if you have a good steel and good edge, you have good razor...I believe DOVO and TI have that, if they don't they might not have as many fan as they have now, however most of them only have factory edge when they're sold, and not a shave ready edge.

equipment is just an equipment, our hand is the one who use it, so it also depend on our hand a.k.a technique...if we have chance to help our weak technique by soften what we want to cut a.k.a soften the beard/beard prep then it will help also.

So I guess, the basic is to have good and proper equipment:
1. Shave ready razor
2. Good soap
3. brush
4. strop (and pasted strop)

honing is for me another thing than shaving...

that's my 0.2 as newbie.

Erick.

The Naniwa you have is a nice set up. Yes, I started laying out the cash when I switched to fixed straight razors and I thought, "but I thought I was going to save money". It will be about 5-6 years before that happens, but I am in this for life, so no worries about it. But I also like quality products and that was my personal preference.

The paddle pasted strop helps with fine tuning the fin to be sharp. It removes some of the loose micro fin and realigns the rest. It is a minor honing tool. A 24 hour period helps the fin dry and realign itself. I dry my razors off after every shave and clean them up nicely and have used the same razor 14 days in a row without any issues.

Coming off my Naniwa 12K, the razor gets finished up with my pasted paddle strop and it is one effective straight razor. It shaves so smoothly and you feel like to you get away with a one pass and get a DFS. When the pasted strop can no longer bring back the edge, its time for full stone honing. My straight razors get stoned honed only about once every 15 months.

The Video's on SRP will help you along on the honing process. Overall, this has been a worthy investment because the Mach 3 was creating unsighlty pimples if I went for a BBS shave ATG in many areas. Straight Shaving doesn't do this to me and I am much happier about it.

Good Luck,

Pabster

I did not mind putting the money on the table for the right equipment. The difficulty was to determine the equipment i needed. I was starting to believe that i had not bought the right equipment. Thanks for confirming that my setup is just fine...

The forums on this site talk a lot about honing equipment, but it is not clear what is really needed. It appears that there are lots of different views. Some say that honing on 8K is sufficient. When you are a beginner, you just do not know. In my case, i refrained myself from using the 12K stone cause some members suggested not to go to the 12K before the razor was sharp. But it was not clear to me if the razor was sharp enough bucause it tugged.. Also, reading user's experiences, some seemed to be satisfied with a razor coming off an 8K stone.

I am starting my journey, i now know that 8K is not sufficient to me and that the 12K is the minimum i need to satisfy my shaving requirements. I am aiming at getting the sharpness of a shavette . Clearly, the 12K does not provide me with this. I will follow your suggestion and study the pasted strope equipment.

It would be good if this site had suggestions / recommendations for the equipment needed for different type/profiles of beard. I bought my first str8 from someone who did not like it too sharp (perhaps his beard is not dense/coarse), and clearly this did not satisfy my needs.

Not withstanding the fact that when we start to use a str8, we have a lot to learn , taking decision and choosing any equipment is not an easy task. If there were some standard recommendations based on some profiles (perhaps based on beard type or i do not know what), then it could help the new people joining. I had read about pasted stropes, but from what i had read, it seemed like an advanced technique that was not needed to get a comfortable shave.

On the positive side, this forum gets us in touch with great and experimented people who steer us in the right direction. Thank you , i have learned a lot already, i am slowly getting to where i want to be.