Hello everyone,
I've been lurking around for a while now trying to gather all of the information I can, but I seem to have hit a wall and am in desperate need of some help.
A brief background for some perspective to my question:
I became interested in shaving with a straight razor back in January of this year. I was tight on money and decided to start out with a shavette. After a couple times I began getting incredibly comfortable shaves with it. Eventually, I was able to save up and move to a real straight about two and a half months ago. I purchased a Dovo Special 5/8 from Straight Razor Designs. It came shave ready. Shaving with it was so much nicer than the shavette, although it was noticeably not a sharp, which I understand to be typical. I quickly got used to it and was getting some awesome shaves. After about 6 or 7 weeks though, the razor began tugging a bit. Shaving in the mustache region was especially painful. I have been stropping before and after each shave, about 50-60 strokes before and 30-40 after. I figured it might need to be touched up, so I purchased a 20k chinese polishing stone. I did 10 strokes on that (after lapping it of course) with no change in the tugging. Then I tried 20 with no improvement again. So, I started shaving with the shavette again, and was amazed at how easily it cut.
Today I purchased a Norton 4k/8k stone and spent a bit of time lapping it. I tried 10 strokes on the 4k, 10 on the 8k, and 20 on the polishing stone, hoping to once again get a smooth shave. Unfortunately, it was still tugging and painful.
When I read about similar problems, it is usually because shaving technique is suffering. I don't understand how my technique could be regressing though. Do I need to spend more time on the hones to get it sharp again? And more importantly, should the blade be that bad already when it's only been used for 10 weeks or so?
Thank you for any insight you can provide!
