You don't know what you don't know until you do
Hi,
I'm about 2-1/2 months into my straight razor shaving experience. My last 3 shaves have been all straight razor shave. No touch ups with the mach.
I wanted to share an "ah ha" moment. I've skimmed the wiki and forums for for info. Watch the videos. They mention things like sharpness or pulling or pressure, but for a new user of a straight razor, these things are kind of relative to your personal experience with your razor. As you gain more experience with the razor and other function like stropping and honing, you get that reference point that only experience and doing can bring.
So for me, I have found that when I corrected my stropping, my shave was more pleasant. When I saw what 3-4 strokes on a barbers hone does to my razor, wow, this is really sharp now. It was relative from before.
Each step I noticed a difference be it good or bad. Bad like when I tried to put tape on the spine of my razor to hone it. It did not shave well after. However, I was able to correct it by removing the tape and hone again without it.
So now, to me, it's really really sharp. It pop's hairs pretty good.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is use your razor, use your strop and barber hone. Consider having 2 razors so if you screw one up you can still shave, until you fix what you broke.
Mike