Hi.
After been shaving with my Megress DE with feather blades for a couple of years, I thought it was time to "man up" and try straightshaving. After much reading I ordered a Norton starter set 220/1000 - 4000/8000, got an old razor from my Brother and honed away.....
The edge had a chip after my brother had doped it in the sink so that was my first thing to sort out, found in the wiki about restoring a damage edge and of I went to the world of not knowing a shit about what I was doing
Made my own paddle and hanginstrop and ordered diamond paste for the paddle 1 and .5 micron.
I tried every stroke possible on the hones, pyramids and every technique I could find about honing.
Then I ordered a 60X loupe on ebay, well was I wrong about how to hone or what
I thought that I had a light tush but I was miles from light, I started over and did different type of strokes and pressure and every 5 to 10 strokes I looked in my loupe and watched what happened with the edge, when you read "light pressure" itīs in fact extremely light itīs like pat a butterfly without removing the fine powder on there wings. (Well almost)
Iīm not saying that Iīm 100% right but after I bought the loupe I can see that my bevel is even all the way over before moving to finer grit. Iīm still learning and have yet to learn the art of getting a true shave ready razor.
Today in my mail there was my 3" Latigo Big Daddy strop from Star shaving Supplies and a bench strop and ,5 micron chromium oxide and also a razor from Invisible Edge in the UK and today I had my straightrazor shaving maiden voyage and didnīt nick me once (not more either)
So now itīs time to go to training-camp to truly learn the angels in shaving and the magic of honing.
Bo
From Sweden