Thread: Shavette shaving vs Straight razor shaving

I made some progress in the past couple of weeks and i have found that the Dovo that i had bought was not shave ready for me. I first thought that it was the transition from the Shavette to the straight razor. I went back to basics and paid attention to angle and the amount of pressure. I helped reduce the redenning but it never helped get the razor to do its job properly. I always felt the razor pulling the hair while it cutting. I never had this feeling with the Shavetted except when the blade was dull.

I decided to buy a brand new razor and after i talked to the owner of the store (who advertises on this site) and told him about my problem, he recommended i buy a Thier Issard C135 Steel razor. This razor comes shave ready from the manufacture , in France. I have been using this razor since i got it on may 18th and am i glad i bought this razor. The first time i used it, i did not even use the leather strope and i gave me a nice shave. I now use the leather strope before i use it and it provides me with a very nice shave. I find that it is very close to the shavette as far as the ease to cut the whiskers. I still feell that the shavette with a brand new blade shaves quicker (blade is sharper in my opinion). However, the feel of the shave with the Thier Issard is much nicer.

I have also bought a set of Naniwa stones (3K, 8K and 12K) to bring the Dovo in line with the Thier Issard. I thought i would post my last findings to help those who experience a similar issue or those helping people: consider that the razor edge may be dull even if the razor was sold as shave ready.

I bought the razor from a newbie member who had bought the razor brand new in december. I thought the razor would still be sharp since it was honed by SRD. However, the seller felt it was too sharp and used natural stones to make it more confortable to him. I suppose that the process of using the natural stones made the blade a little dull. I have a coarse beard and i need a sharp edge if i do not want to exert pressure while cutting the whiskers.

Beware of newbie selling their razor and telling that they are not honemeister. You may get a good razor that won't shave comfortably. 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.

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.