Thread: my first razor

My first razor arrived today. It's an antique japanese kamisori. The seller said its shave ready but it didn't seem very sharp to me. I have sharper knives in my kitchen. I touched it up on a japanese natural stone. I got it quite a bit sharper but not quite sharp enough. The stone I used has a very small area that is actually smooth. I think I'm going to wait till I get my new stone and my shaving soap before I give it a go. I did test it out on my dry face and it seemed pretty close to where I would feel comfortable.

I checked the tracking on my stones and the package just left denmark for america today. Hopefully it wont be much longer. I should be getting new things in the mail pretty much every day this week. I'll post pictures later. When I get my stone maybe I'll do a group photo of them all together.

yeah, if the person doesn't shave with them it's probably not sharp at all

Yeah it sounds like you'll need to hone that until it's razor-ready. The wiki has some good articles on basic honing, it definitely helped a couple days ago when I honed for the first time.

make sure you do plenty of research on how to hone a razor before you try you dont wanna completely mess up your razor

I've learned patience with the honing saves a ton of time...if you hurry, it seems like if you made a mistake...you are back to square one....don't forget to tape areas you don't want to shave metal off of...

So, honing... does what exactly? I'm a bit confused about the difference between honing and stropping.

Honing is sharpening the blade on a stone. Stropping is refining the edge on leather by "stropping". Honing is done first and stropping follows that to make the edge even sharper.

You'll find much information on both in the Wiki, probably all the information you'll need.

Trust me. Get the razor professionally sharpened by one of the members or advertisers here. When you get it back you'll know exactly what a sharp, shave ready razor feels like. Remember that feeling and use it as a guide when do your own sharpening.

Most razors advertised as shave ready are not. The sellers are either too lazy to hone the razor before they send it out or they don't know how.

I got 2 more razors in the mail today. 1 nice swedish one and 1 trashy german one to practice sharpening. The german blade was chipped up real bad so I broke out my entire stone collection and went to work. I took all the chips out on the side of my beston 500 and then went through each stone up to kitayama(8K). Then I noticed that I had another chip in the blade. I'm not exactly sure how it got there. I decided to call it quits for now and wait till I get my new finisher.

It seems like the steel in this blade is very brittle. Is that typical for straight razors? I have some inexpensive japanese knives that will chip if you look at them wrong, this razor reminds me of that.

I got bored and decided to grind the chip out. After I took it out i rubbed it with a microfiber to make sure it was gone and it was. Then I started grinding the bevel and before I knew it another chip. Whatever, I'll just keep grinding the bevel and practice sharpening. It took awhile but I got it shaving arm hair really good off my bester 1200.