A little background first: I'm a beginner straight shaver and received my first razor back in february and shortly discovered SRP. I did the beginner "thing" and read what seemed like a thousand threads looking for advice and tips. I threw out the word "mentor" in one of my posts and was contacted by AFDavis11, who lives in my area. He is very knowledgeable and answered all of my questions promptly. After a month or 2 I decided that I didn't think my razor was quite as sharp as it should be and contacted AFDavis11 for help again, hoping that he might sharpen my razor and show me how to hone in the process. Not only was he happy to help but I went to his home and he also showed me what I was doing wrong on the strop, loaned me a "cheap" razor to practice honing, and gave me a wealth of other information that I wasn't expecting.

That being said... My advice to other beginners would be to seek advice from the guys who have been doing this for years. I wanted to just jump right in and figure it all out for myself and if I had done that then I'm sure my razor would be destroyed and worthless, I would have shed a lot more blood than necessary and I probably would have quit. Ultimately there's no substitute for experience and SRP members are here to help.

So a huge thanks to AFDavis11 for all of your help and advice and to SRP for providing the resource to make it possible!