Thread: Beginner's Tips: August 2011

Completely agree about the bevel setting, if you can't shave arm hair off the 1k you'll end up with a shiny but dull edge. Once I got that figured out things fell into place much quicker..!

Don't be afraid to give things a bit of welly on the 1k stone, the bevel set is the hardest and most important part IMO.

I also think one of the best ways to learn is to go to a meet. From a selfish point of view I always learn loads and it's great to meet others but I also think it really helps the newer guys get up to speed quicker because you can actually sit with someone and see what they're doing.

Great post Glen!

Interesting, I figured out the pressure doing bevels and the strop taunetess thing by watching your videos. You can literally hear how much pressure you use.
Same thing about stropping, especially when you use the loud 827.
And I find I spend more and more time at 1k to make things right.

Thanks once again for your informative post.

Each time I read one of your Beginner's Hints, I feel like I am having an "aha" moment. "So, that's what their talking about."

You should put all your hints together and label them "Staying Out of Trouble!"

If one will only read and take advantage of all the information on SRP, one can certainly gain a great education!

I just recently started honing (hell, I even started straight shaving only about four months ago) and I have to say that no matter how valuable,interesting, and so on talking to experienced people is, I'm having a blast learning to hone all by myself, and on a coticule.

I'm not saying "get a stone and scrape a blade over it until you get it right", not at all, but with some minor hints and tips, background reading and so on I got the first blade I ever honed to shave pretty damn well. I think it's also good to remind people:

Shaving and honing is not rocket science.

Nonetheless, I hope you guys had a blast at the meet-up and learned valuable things. Stubborn as I am, even I have to admit that some people are better at some things than me and might actually teach me some stuff I didn't know.