Thread: Just saying hi and trying to learn before I take the next step into Straight Razors.

Just wanted to introduce myself and say hi. I have been a DE shaver since 2008 and have really enjoyed the process from Razors, soaps, creams, and blades. I will probably be taking the next step in the next few months and I plan on just going with Whipped Dog on a kit unseen to start with. My biggest concern is not the shave, but the honing and stropping. I learned to sharpen knives from my dad and granddad and have their Arkansas Soft Stone and the Hard sharpening stones which I will not use for a Straight Razor. I do know that sharpening a razor is much different than knives. I have seen many talk about the Norton 4000/8000 combination water stone, and many others. You can get over whelmed and spend a great deal quickly. I just want to keep it simple for now and my thoughts are that Straight Razor shaving has been on this earth for a long time my granddad and even his granddad used Straight Razors and I suspect back in the early 1800's to the early 1900's my kin folks were pretty poor and probably used one sharpening stone and a leather strop. I know they were pretty good at razor sharpening as they were all clean shaven men in all the pictures that I and my parents have ever seen. Just a quick note that in 1983 after my grandparents death we proceeded to clean out the house gathered the things we wanted and just did an estate sale for everything else. I do remember cleaning out the bathroom drawer and my granddad had 7 or 8 straight razors and several vintage Gillettes razors. Then we started cleaning out the storage building. Found a big box of Straight Razors that he sold at their country store he owned in Mississippi. Most were Filarmonica and Henkels. I think we sold both boxes for $20 and there were probably 15 Filarmonica still in original box never used and 6 Henkels in the original box never used. Just did not know about all this stuff back then.

Welcome to the forums! That box you found was a really great find, too bad you sold it. Either way, this is a great site for any information you need. Just ask!
Parker

G'Day Matt and welcome to SRP.
You have started on your journey and seem to have the lathering and face prep down OK.
Might I suggest this link to help prepare you for your first straight shave -
http://straightrazorpalace.com/begin...ead-first.html
Some of it may be teaching you to suck eggs, however, some will give you a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious)
I would say to you that, to reduce the number of variables, you concentrate on shaving and stropping for the next few months and get into honing sometime down the track.
Good luck.
We look forward to hearing about your progress.
Don't forget we are all here if you need some advice or have questions

BTW, if you find another box of Filly's and Henkel's, I'll take them off your hands for $40.00....hehehehe

Originally Posted by Havachat45

G'Day Matt and welcome to SRP.
You have started on your journey and seem to have the lathering and face prep down OK.
Might I suggest this link to help prepare you for your first straight shave -
http://straightrazorpalace.com/begin...ead-first.html
Some of it may be teaching you to suck eggs, however, some will give you a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious)
I would say to you that, to reduce the number of variables, you concentrate on shaving and stropping for the next few months and get into honing sometime down the track.
Good luck.
We look forward to hearing about your progress.
Don't forget we are all here if you need some advice or have questions

BTW, if you find another box of Filly's and Henkel's, I'll take them off your hands for $40.00....hehehehe

It is the policy of this forum not to discuss razor evaluations here. Oh heck, I'll double that forty bucks!

Hello and welcome to SRP! I agree with Havachat--don't worry about honing yet. Get a shave-ready blade and a strop, and practice your shaving and stropping for now. When you feel like it's time to learn honing, that might also be a good time to get a second shave-ready razor, so you'll be reminded what a freshly honed blade feels like. They change so gradually, like eyeglass prescriptions, that you forget how sharp sharp can be. So with your fresh blade for comparison, start work on your sleepy one. My first honing success came on a Norton 4k/8k and dogged adherence to the pyramid honing instructions in our wiki. Also spend some time reading and wrapping your head around the idea of setting a bevel. It's an easy idea, but it seems to take a while for some folks (like myself) to internalize it. Unless your bevel is set, all honing is in vain.

Until your shaving techniques are pretty good, you won't be able to distinguish between subpar shaves caused by subpar edges or subpar techniques, so you'll be juggling too many variables.

Best wishes and happy shaving.

Thanks everyone for the helpful advice. When it comes to honing a razor all I can say is WOW! Just understanding which honing stones you need can be confusing then setting the bevel... just a lot to take in and yes I can see why I should not concentrate on Honing at this time. Like I said Whipped Dog will be my starting point and I will stick with that for some time while I work on my shaving technique. I like the thought of getting a second razor when I do began to hone so I can compare it to the one that was professionally honed.

welcome . . .

+1 on the previous comments.

Honing can take a serious pile of hones and practice.
A number of folk hone razors for ballpark $20 each and have a couple
thousand $$ invested in their kit of hones and strops.
More importantly they also have experience having honed thousands of razors.

Knowing this can let you focus on stropping and
shaving which alone takes practice.

If you have been lucky to find a DE razor and blade combination
that serves you very well you may find that it takes a gosh
long time to match that with an open blade razor no matter
who hones it. I can tell you that it is possible but could take a
while....

Note that it is true that a Norton 4k/8K is all that most need but
we do tend to want to embark on the ultimate quest for more...
thus honing can get expensive....

My dad use to sit at the table and I would sit and watch while he honed the knives and scissors for our home. He would always say that you want it to be "As Sharp as the Devils Tongue and with the cutting edge of an Angels Wing".