Okay, I am a newbie. I have read a lot online about straights, and I bought one off of an online posting like craigslist a while ago. It is a new Dovo razor that someone had got as a gift but didn't like it. It came with a strop. I bought some proraso shaving soap and a cheap (non-badger hair) brush to apply it. But when I shaved with it it really didn't work very well. Figured it may not be sharp enough (shave-ready) so, first I bought an 8000 grid waterstone and tried to sharpen it myself. Didn't have a noticeable improvement. Of course I read here that newbies don't sharpen properly so I decided I'd send it to someone who knew what they were doing. Got it honed by someone linked to here, and it came back with maybe a slight improvement (I didn't strop it before trying since they said they strop it before they send it back). It was definitely sharpened as there was more wear on the spine.

Is it possible that I just don't have the right type of beard? The razor doesn't seem to slice the hair. I get some ripping and then give up and do the job with my disposable gilette sensor. Is it my technique? I have never cut myself with it, and it doesn't really seem that it is sharp enough just to slice stuff. I tried the hanging hair test and it tends to grab the hair and tug it but never slice on contact.