Thread: Straight Razor Pain

i've used the new dovo i received from tony miller twice now, and both times the shaves have been quite painful. it feels as if the lather isn't working at all b/c the razor pulls like hell. i don't think it's b/c of the sharpness of the blade b/c 1) it's from tony and 2) before each time i stropped it w/tony's paddle strop. it just feels as if i can't get the same effortless gliding that the DE provided. can you guys give me some pointers if you have any?

Well from recently having been in your shoes there are two things I can think of.

Firstly, it is very rare for me to get that effortless glide a DE gives me with my straight. Even though my technique is improving. A straight feels less slippery and finer edged to me, a completely different sensation. There isn't any irritation when done right but there is the sensation of a blade on your face that isn't there when you use your DE correctly. A straight also takes a firmer hold than a DE you must hold the blade in such a way as to keep it firm and straight without skipping or vibrating but still not apply pressure to your face, just glide along the surface. The best analogy I can come up with is from pistol shooting you keep a firm wrist but supple hands and a lite touch.

Secondly, a problem I had with my first shave possibly my most painful lesson to date, A rolled edge from stropping. It is very easy to roll an edge when stropping, one lift of the spine and you dull the razor instead of smooth it. Pain and pulling follow. This little problem has, for me, become less frequent as I gain experience yet still pops up from time to time. I keep a Swaty barbers hone in my shaving drawer to do ten passes on when I screw up my razor on the strop. If this is your problem you too will have to go to a hone or the pasted side of your strop to bring the edge back.

Sounds like Wildtim is on the mark to me. If your attacking it with a pasted side before each shaving session it may be overhoned or "hone-rolled" which is even worse. If your getting only slight difficulty it could also be that some of the paste remains after your stropping and your shaving on grit paste.

I would do some very slow stropping keeping the razor flat and see if you can't pull the edge back out. Do this only on plain leather. Maybe 50 strokes starting with a tad of pressure.

You may need to send the razor back to Tony or to someone else to "fix".

Honing it yourself is the obvious solution but you have a learning curve with that.

I rolled my first razor (also from Tony) from overzealous stropping with bad technique, it's possible you did too as this can certainly dull the edge. When I did this I looked on it as a lesson learned about stropping and an opportunity to learn honing, so I got myself a Norton 4K/8K and refreshed my blade on the 8K side.

Just an idea though, when I was learning I found it easier to learn the technique without heavy stubble in the way. Maybe try doing the first pass with a DE razor or Mach3, then a second pass with the straight. The reduction in whiskers will help you to work on learning the technique without excessive dragging.

Stropping could be an issue. The guys have covered this pretty well, so I'm not going to repeat what they've said.

You didn't mention the angle of the razor. You should be aiming for a 20 degree angle, blade angle relative to your face. If you lay the blade totally flat on your face (edge and spine), lift the spine away from the face about two spine widths and you're there.

Are you stretching the skin? Have you watched Lynn's free shaving video yet?

thanks for all the suggestions guys. i'll certainly try them out later today. could someone perhaps copy the links to videos on straight shaving, stropping etc. i youtubed it and found some videos but they're not exactly instructive - they're just ppl shaving themselves.

much appreciated.

If you haven't got it already I'd highly recommend that you buy Lynn's instructional DVD, it's truly worth its weight in gold! You can buy it direct from Lynn or from Classicshaving (same price I think).

http://straightrazorpalace.com/showthread.php?t=7412
http://www.classicshaving.com/catalo...51/3712226.htm

You can watch Lynn's free clip on Youtube at the following link, but it's nowhere near as good as what's on the DVD. Also I tried to copy Lynn's stropping style from the free clip and that's how I rolled my edge*, on the DVD he explains in detail about stropping.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...straight+razor