Thread: Beginners Tips: December 2011

First off I wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Just a short list of tips this month, a few things I have seen multiple questions on


Rust:

I keep seeing this "My New Razor Rusted" after **** Days

Seriously guys, Carbon steel razors rust in minutes, not hours, not days, but minutes.. also the new ones, and freshly buffed ones rust faster...

You are combining water, soap, and skin, you have to either keep it dry or learn to dry it after the shave..
Now if you are a messy wet shaver (like me) and get the whole razor wet then you have to get the whole razor dry.
Rinse it with very hot water, this gets more of the crud off, and the heat helps to dry the razor, shake it out, blow it out, and/or wipe it dry, but the razor has to be dry before you put it away... I leave mine open until the next day inside a drawer.. I recommend oiling them even though I don't have to in my shave den...

Stropping:

Learn to strop, no really all the stuff you read on here about honing is so un-important until you learn to strop correctly..
If you are brand new I always recommend placing a hanging strop on the edge of a table/counter to learn the flip..

Alan/afdavis has a fantastic video that shows the flip very well here Straight Razor Place - Stropping Video

TY Alan

Once you have the flip down then you can move to hanging the strop and learning how to use what you have learned on a nice taut strop.. Note the word "taut", if you arm is shaking from holding the strop, then you are trying to hard...
We did a survey some time back about how fast people strop http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...ng-strops.html and found that 30 laps per minute is about perfect. Most people were between 20-30

So slow down, correct stropping is way more important than fast...


Pressure:

I just practiced this while I was shaving this morning, it is natural for you to want to press harder to get a better cutting action, DON"T

Get very very light to get very very close

Learn the angles, and BTW they change for different types of razors which is why you always hear 20° to 30° I use the 2 spine widths as it seems easier to understand...
Also try and learn what we call a scything cut early on, it really helps to slice the hair rather than push through it ..

Lather:

OK when you are new you shave slower, you are going to either shave faster or you are going to have to re-lather as you move from quadrant to quadrant.. As you get faster then re-lather as you move from side to side, and finally you will get fast enough to just lather once per pass ::
I highly recommend the re-lather option over the shave faster option when you are new to this

Water:

Use water to your advantage wet your face well before lathering, we call this wet shaving for a reason

Also this next part is only my humble opinion some will see it the other way around, but I believe it is better when you are new,to have a wetter lather instead of a dryer one.. so if you are going to err when making lather I think it is better to err toward too wet

Again that is JMHO

Hope that helps out a bit, and as always I encourage the Senior Members to add their opinions to this thread as we all see things differently and the more info for the new guys the better..
TIA