Quote Originally Posted by markevens View Post
Welcome to SRP!

Invisibleedge is a very reputable site, and any razor you get from them will be shave ready. If you are going to get a starter set from them, you can't go wrong. I'd just suggest not spending a lot on your first razor and strop.

Forget about sharpening for now. It will take a few months of shaving before you need to hone your razor, and you can cross that bridge when you come to it. For now, just focus on getting a good shave (which will take a lot of focus in the beginning).

I do like the idea of a cheep razor to practice on, but don't expect much out of a 10 dollar ebay special, as there are a variety of issues vintage razors can have that make getting a shave ready edge difficult. If all you want something to develop your coordination with the razor and hone so you don't bung up your real shaver in some newbish way, than that's fine.
Quote Originally Posted by cpcohen1945 View Post
YES !!!

Don't risk damaging the edge of a "known-good" (especially a new) razor when learning to hone.

That's the time to visit a local antique shop, or eBay, and get a _really cheap_ vintage blade to practice on.

Charles

thanks for the message guys, that was what i was interested in really, ive very little experience in sharpening anything. Ive only ever done a knife or two but that was never incredidbly sharp.

I figured i would get myself a cheap razor and a recomended set of hones, then start practicing and working on the cheapy so i hopefully develop some ability to use hones etc, that way if i trash a $10 razor no one is going to loose any sleep over it, but in the process i hopefully learnt a few new skills.

What do you think?

im happy to pay to have mine sharpened for the time being but would rather be able to-do it later on myself if possible.