I got my razor professionally honed at straight razor designs. I did not strop before my first shave and it seemed fine for the majority of the shave. I think my angle was too close to 45 degrees though because I got quite a bit of razor burn and when I stropped before my next shave it sounded far to loud not to have curved back on its self so I stropped longer on the fabric than I had planned and that seemed to do the trick, then when I finally got to the shaving portion, I tried to keep it where if the angle was off it would be where the spine was closer to my skin so under 30 degrees, and that worked well until Saturday. I had finally been able to get a full 3 pass shave Friday, but Saturday I felt it was pulling during the second pass. I have been worried about ruining my razor so I was not wanting to try and hone it myself yet even though I had managed to get to golden dollar razors shave ready from scratch, but those were not my razors and were not being used by anyone so there was no fear of ruining them. I have a free re-honing at straight razor designs, but I don't want to use that until I get a second straight. I just did about 8 passes on a 15k wet stone and then a strop and it shaved my arm no pulling restropped, came here to look for posting now I will go and begin to shave and see if I need to do more.