Thread: New setup, vintage blades; decent, for starting?

Hey, I just started up with all the straight razor shaving business. I have thick, extremely fast growing facial hair, and frequently clog razors to the point of uselessness. I've tried everything except this!
So:
Top razor is from the case; bottom razor is a Friedrich Emde razor. It had a pretty bad crack, I used a grinder in my garage to make a sort of notch for it from where the crack started. It's a little shorter now, but it should have worked for stopping it from cracking in half.

I picked up this strop:
Barber Supplies - Barbershop Equipment - Illinois Razor Strop
And this soap:
Barber Supplies - Barbershop Equipment - Surrey Tonsorial Cake Soap
And this brush:
Barber Supplies - Barbershop Equipment - Marvy Omega #5 Shaving Brush with Stand
And a neat little ceramic cup with a picture on it.

They also have Fromm razors and C-mon razors, but I figured I'd be just as well off getting some vintage razors sharpened. A German one and a US one seemed like a pretty good bet.

So what I want to know is... is my setup missing anything?
What is the canvas side of the strop for? Do I need to put anything on the strop? It seemed to do OK on the Torrey blade.
Where should I get them honed? I don't have anything locally.
The Torrey one is OK, and shaved better than my old razors, but still prickled a little. The German one is unusable in it's current state.
The shave soap was cheap, and the brush wasn't badger... but I really, really like it.

I read over the newbie shaving guide, and a lot of stuff in the wiki for getting started. Eventually I want to learn to hone, but that's down the road. Even with the only kind of sharp blade, it's a better shave than anything I've ever had. And it hurt less and did no damage to my face, even with the prickles. I shaved a cheek ATG without any pain, or razorburn. It's great!

So... sharpening is the first order of business.


EDIT:
Oh yeah; is there an easy way to tell if a blade is sharp? I know that's vague, but I have no basis for comparison, I don't know if the decent blade was prickly because I'm doing it wrong, or because it's a hair dull. I have VERY course hair. I used to shave with these double bladed razors with a strip that slid between the two blades to clean them... it took 4 or so to shave my face. they clogged and dulled that quickly.
So... Easy test to figure out if it needs honing?