Christmas Present

Hello guys,

Recently I mentioned to someone that I might like to get into straight razor shaving. That prompted that person to give me a straight razor, a strop and a brush for Christmas. I was pretty excited, because I had heard good things about SR shaving, and I have an extremely thick beard, so I'm always looking for ways to improve my shave. Unfortunately I do not know anything about SR shaving, and even though I've read some articles and watched some videos, I still have a few doubts I was hoping you could help me with. First of all, my razor is a Dovo. My strop says "Prima Rindler" and "Boeker" on it. Ok, here come the questions:

1- The guy who sold the razor said one should strop before shaving. What's more, the strop came with some kind of very thick paste that I had to smear over the leather part of it. The strop has a leather side and a white side made of some kind of white fabric (linen I'd guess). Apparently I'm supposed to wet the white part, strop the razor on the leather part first and then on the wet fabric side. Is this correct?

2- I feel that after some training I got my stropping technique right (leading with the spine, and so on), however I'm afraid I might've nicked the edge by stropping it incorrectly in the beginning. The edge feels kind of dull, duller than my safety razor anyway. The guy at the store told the person who gave me the razor that I was supposed to send it to a professional honer eventually, but I really don't feel like doing it right now. I was thinking about getting a wetstone so I can hone the razor myself (I really don't mind spending time learning the technique). I could really use some advice as to where and what kind of stone I should get. I read an article saying that this 4000/8000 grit Japanese wetstone that you can find on amazon is a good buy. Unfortunately the won't ship it to Europe, so I wanted to know if you guys know of any website that does (the classic edge apparently does). Any advice on what stone to get is welcome too, and whether or not I need something else (besides the stone) to hone my razor.

3-This seems a lot of work to shave. I don't mind going through all of it if in the end my shaves do improve. So did SRs improve your shaves? I know that going from Mach 3's to safety razors was great for me.

Cheers!

Welcome to SRP

My condolences on the misinformation, nicks, and poor shaves. However now you are in the company of fellow victims, and we will help. hrm I mean addicts. :)

1. Strops sometimes need conditioned, If the paste mentioned was strop conditioner with out any abrasives your strop should be fine. However your understanding of the use of a strop is perhaps off a little. A unpasted strop, that is one with out abrasives, is usually used for 10 to 40 passes on the webbing / fabric side followed by 20 to 100 passes on the leather to smooth the edge before a shave. No part of the strop should be wet during stropping.

2. Yes the Norton 4k/8k is a good hone. Learning to hone is a good goal. Assuming you have some experience sharpening I would expect it to take you at least 50 - 100 man hours, several razors including one shave ready razor, and at least $80 to $200 in hones to consistently get good shave ready edges. Compared to about $20 to send a razor out, $20 to $90 for a barber or finishing hone for touch ups / honing introduction.

3. If you go into the deep end, restoration, honing, and shaving; it can take up a lot of time. but if you are just shaving and touching up a straight it will soon take very little time to shave with a straight. From when I get up to when I leave the bathroom after shaving about 40 min have passed. A straight is a different animal from a disposable cartridge. The shave can be worlds apart with good prep and a shave ready razor.

Here is what I would like you to do. First please send the razor out to be honed, Member services will help on that. When you learn to hone having one pro honed shave ready razor as a control to compare you honing to is good. Second Read a lot more. The Beginner's Guide to Straight Shaving, Beginner's Guide to Honing. That should get you started.

Jonathan

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Datsots

Welcome to SRP

1. Strops sometimes need conditioned, If the paste mentioned was strop conditioner with out any abrasives your strop should be fine. However your understanding of the use of a strop is perhaps off a little. A unpasted strop, that is one with out abrasives, is usually used for 10 to 40 passes on the webbing / fabric side followed by 20 to 100 passes on the leather to smooth the edge before a shave. No part of the strop should be wet during stropping.

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Yes, I had actually figured that out after watching a few videos. Just wanted to make sure :D

Thanks a lot for replying, I really appreciate it.