Thread: My First Razor

dickyince,

Personally, I would stay awy from ebay when purchasing my first straight razor. As ghostrider suggested, read the SRP wiki carefully, then check the listings of vendors in the UK or SRP members in the SRP Classifieds who sell shave ready razors and/or razor strop sets. It my cost you a little more initially, but believe me the enjoyment/satisfaction will be well worth it.

Originally Posted by jhenry

dickyince,

Personally, I would stay awy from ebay when purchasing my first straight razor. As ghostrider suggested, read the SRP wiki carefully, then check the listings of vendors in the UK or SRP members in the SRP Classifieds who sell shave ready razors and/or razor strop sets. It my cost you a little more initially, but believe me the enjoyment/st=atisfaction will be well worth it.

As an example. I am confident in my sharpening skills that I just have too much pride to leave it up to someone else (I don't carry my pocket knife if it doesn't easily shave arm hairs. And no, that still isn't shave ready.) However, It would still have been much cheaper initially to just buy one off the classifieds here. The reason is because the hones that are used for straight razors are not often used for pocket knives. A high grit for a knife is 600 (I use as high as Spyderco's Ultra Fine, and I've read that it's 2000). According to my reading, a coarse grit for a razor is 4000. I had to go out and buy more hones just to get my razors up to shaving readiness. They cost as much each as I could have picked up a shave ready razor for off of this site.

Thanks again for all of your responses :-)

I think the problem with the link came from me being in the UK and using eay.co.uk and not ebay.com :-(

Here is the link for ebay.com (hope it works this time)

http://cgi.ebay.com/Elegant-Solingen...8#ht_500wt_744

As a fall back I have checked and if you search for :

Elegant Solingen Cut Throat Straight Razor Shaver - NEW

you will find the original razor that I was linking too. (It will come up as an international seller from the UK on ebay.com and you can even find it as a result from a straight google search)

jhenry mentioned vendors in the UK, the only shop I have seen to sell straight razors was a corner shop in Manchester that I walked past when I was down during last week. Mind you I have not looked extensively for UK online shops.

A worry for me buying a razor from one of the reputable sellers on this sites classifieds section is the cost of shipping to the UK, this is the main reason that I was looking on ebay as it would be easy to get the razor sent to my flat from a UK seller.

On the subject of ebay, is it reasonable to get other shaving equipment, such as a strop, from ebay as this seams to be less critical as the razor?

I believe there are available sources on this board for Europe. You could ask around.

ETA:

And that is definitely NOT the razor I first saw. lol.

Welcome to SRP dickyince. I would be really suspicious of a new "Solingen" at that price considering an entry level Dovo is more than 2x that. Now, even most Dovos that are honed at the factory will need correcting so for the seller to claim shave readiness really implies someone has honed the razor for them pre sale... I wonder if that's so ? Maybe you should post a query in the forum re the brand. I have never heard of it & personally would not touch it. My advice is to buy a razor from someone with known honing skills who will back up his work. You will have enough challenges learning to strop & shave let alone having doubts about your razor.

dickyince,

Welcome and hello from Hastings

We have two very fine chaps in the UK:

1) Mr Neil Miller (www.strop-shop.co.uk)

2) Mr Steve Dempster (www.theinvisibleedge.co.uk)

who sell and hone razors

Mr Miller specialises in vintage razors and makes superb strops; Mr Dempster does both vintage and new (Dovo & Thiers-Issard) razors.

The razors they supply are all shave ready, and both are very fine to do business with

Have fun !

Best regards

Russ

Originally Posted by dickyince

jhenry mentioned vendors in the UK, the only shop I have seen to sell straight razors was a corner shop in Manchester that I walked past when I was down during last week. Mind you I have not looked extensively for UK online shops.

Try:

Introduction to razors

They're UK-based, and will sell you a new, shave-ready (hand-honed and stropped) Dovo for a reasonable price.

An alternative would be finding a UK vendor in the "Classifieds" on this site.

Avoid buying an expensive strop until you've had some experience stropping. Most people put nicks in strop #1 while learning the motion.

eBay is very tricky for first-time buyers. And experienced buyers, as well!

Charles