Thread: My first post after tons of reading.

Originally Posted by Bosse

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" it´s in fact extremely light it´s like pat a butterfly without removing the fine powder on there wings. (Well almost)
I´m not saying that I´m 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. I´m 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 didn´t nick me once (not more either)
So now it´s time to go to training-camp to truly learn the angels in shaving and the magic of honing.
Bo
From Sweden

Enjoy the ride and welcome to SRP...........................Remember: Be PATIENT..........!

welcome. sounds like a good start.

Well, haven´t shaved yet but after I woke up after the graveyard shift, I took out my brothers razor "Heartring 90D" 9/16 blade just to experiment with the benchstrop with ,5 chromium and after that, felt side on my Big Daddy latigo and last the stropping, It´s almost that you can see your eye in the reflection trough the 60X loupe. I use the HHT but not in the the way you can see on youtube and in different post, maybe I will later when my technique allows it, but for now I take a hair and "drags" it across the blade like a violinbow and watches for the vibrations on the hair. Right or wrong? It´s a start
Well, time for more morning coffee and the shave will have to wait till morning.

Welcome to SRP!

SRP is glad to have you as a new member. I really like your attitude!

Since you have a chip on the edge, once you've honed past it you have a good bevel too and all the sharpness you can get on the 1k level (provided you used light and uniform strokes at the end). The rest is pretty straightforward with the 4000/8000 grit norton - you can just do a pyramid recipe and you'll be there in few tries. The edge you get is going to be limited only by your ability to repeatedly execute uniform strokes.
It's a very good thing to have that other razor for comparison.

Have fun.

It´s been a few shaves now and as my confidence rises, the shaving gets more comfortable. Just a few nicks on the neck but nothing that a alum block or cold water can take care of. What I have to get better at is the stropping, I feel the difference between different stropping sessions now I "just" have to store the good ones in my musclememory. For now I keep it to WTG and XTG and wait until I got everything right before a true ATG and nit just the cheeks.
And thanks for all welcomes and tips, much appreciated.

/Bo