Thread: First straight

Just got my first straight, an "H. Boker No. 101 Barber's Blade Straight Razor Germany". It's not in primo condition, but the edge and scales seem in good shape. The finish is 9/10 on one side of the blade, and 6/10 on the other side. There's also a cut up box that comes along with it.

The bad side:


The good side:


Any thoughts on having this honed, honing it myself, or at some point having it completely refurbished?

Hey WebsII

First welcome to SRP and welcome to a whole new world for your face. Congrats on what looks like a pretty nice razor. My suggestion would be to send that baby out and have it honed/ cleaned up by one of the honemiesters on the site here. If you go to the classifieds and look under member services you will find different members that do honing and restorations. Anyone you pick will be able to do a great job for you. In the mean time read up on shaving and collect the rest of your shaving kit if you havn't gotten that yet.

Originally Posted by WebsII

Any thoughts on having this honed, honing it myself, or at some point having it completely refurbished?

Honing it yourself, as you'll soon discover, isn't very hard once you have the tools and know what you're doing, but you need to be prepared for a healthy initial investment in hones, and you need to know that you may well cause irreparable damage to the first razor or two you try to hone.


As far as that particular razor, it's a bit tough to say from the small pics. That rust looks pretty serious, but it 'could' be superficial. If I were you I'd put some 3-in-1 oil or similar on it this instant, just to stop/slow any further rust.

Then you've got to make some choices, and the only choice that would be completely wrong would be to set that razor aside and come back to is later. That rust needs to be stopped while there's still good metal underneath.

If it were me, I'd hit it with some steel wool to see how deep the rust goes. If it's superficial and you're able to scrubb it off with nothing more than steel wool, then you can oil it up and send it out to be honed (or get some hones and try it yourself)

If the rust has deep pitting underneath, it get's more complicated.