Thread: General maintenance on straight razor ?

Welcome and enjoy the straight razorr world.

I strop before and after every shave. When the razor does not shave as smooth as it did I do 10 passes or so on a SRP modular strop felt pad with .5 micron diamond spray. Alternately I may substitute CROx for the diamond spray. When the time interval between diamond sparay gets too short I will do a complete honing with stones or send it out for honing. I do not profess to be a expert this is what I do. BTW when i store a razor for a period of time I wipe the blade down with camilla oil.Your English was fine. Bonjour

The single most important thing you can do for your razor is to keep the pivot area dry. That is, don't ever let that part get wet in the first place. You accomplish this by using a dry hand to hold the razor. If water does get into the pivot area, use tissue paper to wick it out, let it air dry, and then oil it. For most of the rest of the blade, just keeping it dry is sufficient because it is exposed to air.

Originally Posted by Utopian

The single most important thing you can do for your razor is to keep the pivot area dry. That is, don't ever let that part get wet in the first place. You accomplish this by using a dry hand to hold the razor. If water does get into the pivot area, use tissue paper to wick it out, let it air dry, and then oil it. For most of the rest of the blade, just keeping it dry is sufficient because it is exposed to air.

I am guessing it is ok to oil the pivot and leave the oil on the pivot area?

Originally Posted by TSasser

I am guessing it is ok to oil the pivot and leave the oil on the pivot area?

Yes and no.
Oiling the pivot will help to protect it from corrosion, but it can also loosen up the pivot, which partially depends on friction to keep the pivot tight.

Once the oil has been applied to the pivot area it would be kinda hard to get it all out again, don't cha think?
For the record I ensure the pivot has oil on it, just so that moisture stays out of this area. It being the hardest to get dry when it inevitably does get wet.
If I'm using the same razor (I only have two in rotation) every other day, I hardly worry about oiling the blade. I just ensure it is as dry as possible before putting it back in a little rack in the medicine cabinet. If I don't plan to use a razor for a while (currently using a DE to learn the ins and outs, so one CT razor is sitting unused), I oil the blade with a thin film of sewing machine oil.

Mick