Thread: New to the site.....but not really

Originally Posted by mmilby

I read a post that told me that if I am new to straight razor shaving I should not be honing or doing such other things.....I disagree. I want to start shaving right away, I want to ruin a few razors...if needed by honing, I want to buy some old razors and restore them and so be it if my techique stinks along the way.

Good for you! A razor is a tool to be used and enjoyed.

Originally Posted by JeffR

Good for you! A razor is a tool to be used and enjoyed.

Agreed, razor is a tool and should be treated (and enjoyed) as such.

Regarding how you want to do it yourself, since you have clearly stated "this is how I will do it" I'll just say 'ok'...you've made it clear this is how you will do it, so who cares if I'll agree or disagree.

That being said, I'm surprised you follow that up with telling much more experienced folks how they should tell new straight shavers how to do things. You clearly don't want to be told anything until you have a question...it seems strange you would do that very thing...to guys who have been doing this a long, long time.

I just hope none of the razors you ruin along the way are nice, there's already enough people doing that IMO.

Oh well. Goodluck and Godspeed.

Welcome to SRP. Unfortunately, if you started with a DE than you already have followed a structured approach. It's not too hard to recover though and prevent yourself from losing face. Buy a razor, bang it on a sink faucet, try to hone it after putting on new scales and shave away! Whatever you learn from that will be beneficial to someone. Maybe not you so much, but someone else. I think you'll be just fine and will have lots of fun too. The other side of the coin are guys who are afraid to damage the gold wash on a blade and never learn to hone at all. The only drawback that worries me a little is simply shaving with an imperfect edge. Every perfect edge feels imperfect to the beginner and every imperfect edge is best perfected through trail and error (by shaving). So it's a challenge that becomes a Catch 22 like scenario. In your shotgun approach consider also buying a shave ready blade. It'll save you some time and a few blades, which are a little expensive and hard to come by.

P.S. Consider trying to get back on Glen's good side; experts in this field are few and far between. :-)

Its a recommendation. Follow it or not, dont really make a difference. Next week though, dont post up about how you cant get your edge to shave now that we know your dirty little secret. The only response you will get is its either bad technique OR bad honing. At the beginning, you can shave fine one time and the next day not so good, on the same razor. As for restoration sans honing its pretty far off base from honing/shaving, I dont see any need to shave or hone to restore a razor as long as you dont pretend its going shave hairs from 3 feet away.

Good job getting the wet portion down first. I really think more people should learn to lather for a bit shaving with the previous method. Just read the first few pages of the n00b chronicles. How much of that could have been avoided if the lather was down first before putting a razor to the face. At the least it would be one less variable to troubleshoot.

I kinda feel gssixgun on the ruining razors. Ruin some modern ones. Practice on old ones with a serious defect.

HUH? I have the highest respect for history. I'm sure to learn how to hone you will have to wear down a razor or so to learn proper technique. I already have some very old razors that I want to learn how to restore by getting the rust off and buffing them back to shave ready. Buy some new pins and replace them if they are rusted and so forth. Saying I want to ruin a few razors doesn't mean i'm gonna intentionally ruin them just for fun but i'm sure wearing one down to a certain point with come with learning to hone. I'm sure at first i will stink but i will teach myself and with the help of others get proficient. Hopefully i don't completely ruin a razor but knowing myself i probably will. I mean I make a pretty nice living but razors are expensive and I don't want to spend more than I have to on replacing razors. One razor I bought was very expensive and I don't plan on using it until I have a great handle on shaving and honing, sort of a reward for myself. Maybe i mis-spoke, its kinda like saying i want to sling some lead or burn through some ammo. I'm not really gonna actually sling the lead or actually burn ammo. I just want to get to the range and shoot. Just a figure of speech. By learning how to hone and how to do restoration I will be preserving history. There are a lot of great old razors out there I would love to put back into commission.

Oh yeah definitely practice on some old razors first, I have a few cheap ones i've acquired to do that on. That has been my experience so far with using a straight razor, not as good of a shave after 2 or 3 shaves. I've had to work on good stropping technique to get that same good edge. I was surprised to see a thread on lathering, I didn't know that was a problem with wet shaving. Even when I started a good lather was easily achieved. Though I always experiment with less/more soap and water combinations but i got down a pretty good system for that. Mostly i want to get into restoration for the relaxation of repetition and time to myself away from the family for a little while, plus when I learn how I will have taken something old,rusty and unshaveable and turned it into something useful.

Yeah my first razor i used was a shave ready dovo from Mr. Abrams (think thats how you spell his name, I'm a horrible speller). That way I knew what standard I wanted to achieve. I know it will be a long road to learn all of this and probably frustrating at times but that doesn't deter me from wanting to jump in and learn. I'm not very good with words and expressing myself sometimes so I'm not to worried about saving face if someone understands that about me. Haha ask my soon to be wife, its a constant "No i didn't mean it that way" battle but she understand me. Also I want to get into honing and restoring is because I want to keep up some kind of coordination and dexterity skills with my hands. The longer I live with ms the worse my body seems to feel so I try to keep as active and excited as I can about new endeavors. If I get honing or restoring and I make a mistake and post on here about it, its okay to either laugh or gimmie "i told you so". Every bit of advice i read on here I try to read and digest and incorporate into what I am doing and I try to give thanks and appreciation to anyone who gives advice on this journey.

I don't have all the answers(obviously). Look i am very bad at expressing what I want to say. In my neurologically sclerosis filled head it made sense when I typed it. I'm shaving currently with a beginner razor that I bought shave ready by a reputable dealer. I will not use or try to hone a nice one until I've got it down(which will probably be quite a while). Sure why wouldn't I want to be told anything? I stated in my original post that I was trying to be respectful, maybe it didn't come off that way. I try to learn what I can to whosoever is kind enough to offfer advice. I was trying to say that I'm jumping in full steam and this is what I want to accomplish. As far as honing I will be using some ones that are a bit worn to begin with so if I ruin them i won't be put out. By the way I love when people say godspeed. I was having a conversation with a buddy two days ago saying I wished more people would say that.

With so many members at SRP and newbies signing on everyday it's impossible for mods and mentors to tailor our advice to each and every individual, so a novice or "middle-of-the-road" approach may be required for beginners. Of course these are just guidelines and are not commandments from Mount Sinai; we realize everybody learns at different rates. Just don't blame us for damaged razors or premature blood transfusions