Thread: stropping technique

That's all good advice, and the only thing I might add besides going slow--being a newbie myself--is to force patience. It's really easy to start slow and careful, but it's easier to lose patience and feel like you can speed things up. I've also learned the hard way that I need to strop with no distractions. If you're counting one-one, two-two, you'll lose track if the radio's on, your wife wants to talk, your son wants to play, or the cat wants food. Dogs, though, generally just watch quietly.

Dan

Welcome to the forum and the insane world
of the straight razor.

You gotten a lot of excellent advise here.
I can definately recommend Tony's strops.
They are of exceptional quailty and come
at a reasonable price. I believe that is
is on vacation through the endof the week.
So if you don't receive a speedy reply that
is why.



Terry

wow, two pages of posts overnight!

I only tried shaving with the Pakistani blade once, thankfully it was so dull it couldn't even cut me. I still had a full beard when I finished, but I guess it was good for a first try just so I could get used to holding a straight blade properly without shredding anything vital. After a quick google search on Pakistani blades, I confirmed what I had suspected: it's just a worthless blade.

So after several hours browsing around, I concluded that the best brands out there are Dovo, Thiers-Issard, and Colonel Conk. Colonel Conk razors were all over 100 bucks or so, and when you're looking for a manly blade, you generally don't think of the French, so that left Dovo. I went over to Classic Shaving and bought a $60 5/8 Dovo, I can't remember what they called it and it doesn't seem to be on the site anymore. I'm on a pretty bad internet connection for the next day or two so that might be it...

Anyway, I've been stropping using the tight and light-to-no pressure technique, which if I had a decent strop, should work just fine.

So far, I haven't had any major wounds; just some mild skin irritation the first time and a nick every once in a while. I guess I'm just a natural. I'm still trying to work out a technique for the chin though. It might be that my blade isn't quite sharp enough, since my strop is worthless and I have yet to see it pass the hanging hair test.

I don't seem to see much talk about the Colonel Conk brand around here, from my own browsing I thought they were a respectable brand. I bought their surgical Arkansas whetstone for honing, because it was only around $20, as opposed to like $60+ for a Norton. Hopefully I wasn't scammed there too. Here's a link to it:

http://www.knifecenter.com/kc_new/st...html?s=cc110rs

I've pretty much got the honing movement down by practicing with my Pakistani butter knife on an old hunting knife whetstone. I think it would be best to not use the Pakistani on my razor whetstone, just doesn't seem right. So, I guess the Pakistani has a purpose afterall.

I guess that's all I have to share at the moment.

Unless you opted for classics honing service the Dovo
while a good razor will not be shave ready.

As for razors, there are a lot of vintage razors out
there at a very good price and you can buy them
from members of this forum.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/compo...per/Itemid,33/


This link is under the Vendors Corner.

Lynn, Bill, Joe and Tony all sell shave ready razors. Tony also
sells strops. I can recommend all 4 of these guys.

As far as Col. Conk razors - I would guess that they are made
by Dovo, but not positive.

If the Dovo is not shave ready I would recommend that you
contact either Lynn or Joe about getting this done. It's
imprtant to start out with a shave ready razor as it will
give you a benchmark as to what the term means.

I wish you success.....


Terry

The Col. Conk hone is great, but is too low a grit. You'll need another hone.

k, this is getting really annoying. My strop is no good, my hone isn't good enough, and while I'm at it, I ended up with a boar hair brush... Why must people make this difficult for me? The only good product I've bought so far was the Dovo razor, and it needs sharpening...

Now why, would a reputable straight razor company make a hone for razors that is too low of a grit to be effective? I can almost understand with the jerk on ebay with the fake strop, because that's what people on ebay do, but the Col. Conk stone... that hurts...

Anyone want to trade equipment?

The perfect may be the enemy of the good in this case. The pak razors suck bad, that's for sure, and your strop doesn't look too good either. It's unfortunate that the pak stuf is polluting the straight razor market.

The arkansas stone will work, it's just not optimal. It's a coarse (~1k grit) hone that also sharpens very slowly, but because it's such a slow cutter the coarse grit doesn't hurt the edge as much as you'd think. Just keep a light touch once the edge starts getting sharp (which will make it sharpen even slower). If it works for you then don't worry about it.

If the boar brush generates a good lather and isn't shedding hairs like mad then it's a fine brush and will serve you well. I've got a proraso (omega) brush that is better than several badger brushes I've owned.

If you decide to get a better hone then there are a lot of barber's hones on ebay for about the same price as that arkansas stone - there's no need to go all the way to a norton. That said, the norton is a fantastic hone, it has a fine grit and sharpens very quickly.