Thread: honing razors.

Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus

This is why gssixgun is one of the most respected members of the SRP community: simple, straight-forward and entirely appropriate instruction. I wish I knew 1/100th of what this guy knows about razors!

ok i have seen some back patting for comments made. but that does not get me where i need to be. if the only thing you guys can do is brush up a guy that is a vendor (exception to those who pointed me in the direction of inexpensive razors.....thank you) then i am still sitting here twittling my thumbs on what is "shave ready"

i ventured here on the advice from the founder of this forum on the recommendation of his DVD. if this is the response i get.......lame comments about the cart and the horse and some stupid smiley face.......from someone who is respected and has knowledge on the subject and does not give me any advice or input on the subject of "shave ready" then i am "ready" to go somewhere else.


thanks for the intro to the "Straight Razor" forum.

bye

jeb

The only way you can know what shave ready is, is to gain a lot of experience. In the meantime, it's best to trust someone who does know what shave ready is to hone your razor. There's not really an adequate way to describe it in print. There is something on the main page I believe that descirbes a shave ready razor. It's titled something like "What is shave ready?". It's likely that it'll take a fair bit of time for you to be able to identify it for yourself. Pinklather's advice is spot on btw. I spent months trying to hone blades that needed restorative grinding and feeling like a complete loser for not being able to hone. So take that advice! Find something inexpensive from the classifieds that has been evaluated by someone with a good bit of experience, and go that route. It'll save you alot of time and frustration. It is suggested that a person spend about six months shaving with a shave ready straight before they begin honing. This is also sound advice, but not often abided. I didn't either. The reasoning is that, at that point, you will have a better idea of what shave ready should feel like, and hence a clear goal to shoot for while honing. If I can be of help in any way, feel free to PM me.

Jeb,

This is a gentlemanly forum where we do not bash others. Gssixgun may be a vendor, but if you look on here for any amount of time, I think that you will find the value of his contributions, outweigh any profit he may make. The guy will help anyone and just loves this hobby.

Regards,
Joe

Gentlemen, let's keep it civil, the OP is new here and doesn't quite understand that we are actually trying to help...

If we didn't care we would have simply said, "Go find some razors on e-bay or at the antique store and rub them on rocks, and sooner or later you will either learn or give up"
or We could have said "Why don't you look at the tens of thousands of posts on SRP that ask the exact same question, or Wow we have a search function or GIYF"

We didn't because here at SRP we try and help people avoid the same mistakes that so many others made even when that advice is unheeded and ignored..

BTW for those looking for help locally, above you there is the Community tab in there is a link that says OMG "Local Help"

http://straightrazorpalace.com/srpwi...php/Local_Help


Makes me think of another saying about a horse,,,

Horse ---Water ---Drink

Originally Posted by jebbaker

ok i have seen some back patting for comments made. but that does not get me where i need to be. if the only thing you guys can do is brush up a guy that is a vendor (exception to those who pointed me in the direction of inexpensive razors.....thank you) then i am still sitting here twittling my thumbs on what is "shave ready"

i ventured here on the advice from the founder of this forum on the recommendation of his DVD. if this is the response i get.......lame comments about the cart and the horse and some stupid smiley face.......from someone who is respected and has knowledge on the subject and does not give me any advice or input on the subject of "shave ready" then i am "ready" to go somewhere else.


thanks for the intro to the "Straight Razor" forum.

bye

jeb

Jeb,

PM me and I will hone a razor for you for the cost to mail.

Paul

Jeb PM me and I will send you a "Shave ready razor" at no cost.

And there you have a good example of leaving a forum just a post or two too early.

Sadly. Glen has been nothing but good to me. I think he didn't see the post entirely in the way Glen meant for it to come across. I started honing way too early, but that was before I found this wealth of information. I also went and received instruction from a Master Sharpener (in the Japanese school) on how to hone a razor, and after a month of mediocre results and shaving with my first razor (honed by a pro) for a while, I learned that his wasn't actually the best way to do it. Jeb, don't get discouraged, I would suggest you get the razor honed by a professional, like gssixgun, learn to shave and strop with it, and while you are doing that, you can practice honing.

And one thing I learned, some of you will think I am a heretic, but it helped sharpening all my kitchen, camping, and hunting knives and figuring out how to get the best possible edge every time! I now have a kitchen full of knives that will easily cut through a single layer of newspaper without tearing it...

But to the subject at hand, almost all the guys here are real stand-up men who share an interest in a single thing "Straight Razor Shaving!"

I disagree that you need lots of straight razor experience to know if something is "shave ready". Anyone with any shaving experience whatsoever knows whether an implement will shave their whiskers or not. Sure, they'll need to muck around with angle and the kind of stroke, but that is hardly difficult to both grasp or implement. I knew my first razor was not shave ready the first time I ever used a straight, and I am a renowned twit.

I think sometimes we get caught up in the minutia and forget it is simply about safely and effectively shaving. You can, for example, actually shave off a <10K edge, believe it or not. I shaved off an 8k edge for several years. In fact, I shaved off a factory Dovo edge every second day for about 2 weeks before finally honing it. It is all about learning as you go and progressively building up expertise and experience - none of the older hands had a forum like this, nor did they have the information contained within it, and they most certainly did not have the working definition of "shave-ready" that we seem to have nowadays, and yet they managed to learn to hone and shave.

So to the OP, it's your money, your time, your face, your learning experience. I would suggest you not buy the world's most expensive razor to learn to hone on, simply because you may have some issues, but by the same token you may not. I never killed any of my learning razors, so perhaps you won't either.

Good luck to you.

James.

Originally Posted by Str8Shooter

Jeb,

PM me and I will hone a razor for you for the cost to mail.

Paul

I have sent my first razor to SRD for a hone job, but in a couple weeks when and I've dulled my blade on flesh and stropped my edge to death may i take you up on your free honing offer? haha.

Seriously though, I feel from what I've seen on this sight in the last few days, without this community like this, many newbies like myself would be SOL. You can laugh and crack jokes at my lack of knowledge anytime. I thank the many of you SRP members for this wonderful resource.

Thanks again!