Thread: This site saved my razor from retirement.

Good day, all. I'm a newbie to the site - followed a link with a recommendation.

I've been using a straight razor for three years, but recently gave thought to retiring the blade and getting back on the Mach 3 bandwagon. My daily shave had been getting less and less satisfactory and the hassle of soaping up three times just to look presentable was starting to get on my nerves. The shave was nowhere near to "close" and my faith was nearly gone.

Then I came here. I saw the thread about SUCCESSFUL head shaves with a straight razor and thought back to my efforts with my (then new) razor (Brand: AMA). My head was so badly cut, I told people at work I had been attacked by a friend's cat. I was obviously doing something wrong. I read about the various tests for sharpness: the edge grabbing the thumb-pad; the hanging hair. My razor didn't cut a hanging hair. It didn't grab a thumb-pad. It didn't shave hair off my forearm. Clearly, sharpness was an issue.
I spent four hours on this site after a night shift reading all about honing and stropping. I discovered I was subjecting my razor to a daily routine of "What not to do to your razor". I learned to strop from the television (since when did a movie extra ever learn the proper way to strop?) and the habit of lifting the spine before the edge. I had nicks and chips in the strop. I hadn't honed the blade in three years. The reasons for my face resembling a battlefield every evening were becoming clear.

I dug out a Spyderco Sharpmaker and decided to right all the wrongs I had done to my shaving kit. I didn't want to wait for belgian yellow stones or send my blade away for a professional to tinker with. This had to be done now, as an act of penance. I appreciate my tools were not what an expert might choose, but I made the best of what I had. Three hours of careful work later, my razor will grab my thumb pad. Twenty minutes stropping ended up with an edge that, in places, would slice a hair. This is the sharpest my razor has EVER been. After close to four hours of work, I wanted to try it out.

Normally, shaving off three days of growth is something akin to trial by ordeal. I soaped up and with no small amount of trepidation, put the razor to skin.
I had read about 'letting the weight of the razor do the work', but had never experienced it. I'd been presing the razor against my face for some time to force it to cut hair. Not so this morning. The only thing I could use to guage whether the razor was working was the sound of stubble being sliced. I made quick work of the rest of my face and maintained a state of disbelief as the areas of skin that proved so difficult for YEARS put up as much resistance as candyfloss. It was like having "wipe clean" stubble.

I've NEVER had a closer, quicker, more comfortable shave. Thank you all for your knowledge and help.

I'm glad we've been of some help. Now it's time for you to enjoy the fruits of your labor

Congratulations, Sir! Read like a great shave, even if you didn't have the "usual" or "normal" maintenance equipment. The Spyderco Sharpmaker is a wonderful tool for many applications.

Wow. Good work man.

Congratulations, you earned it with hard work in research and honing!

Welcome and congrats on your success. This is why we are here and you are why we know it is worth it.

Lynn

I absolutely HAD to drop in on THIS friggin thread...

First off lemme say welcome aboard...you're going to love this place for a little while. Then as your spending money starts to dwindle and your collection and various forms of RAD/SAD/SSAD/BAD etc start to develop you'll wish you'd never heard of a straight razor

All kidding aside, believe it or not I too started out with nothing but a blade and a SharpMaker. In fact you're one up on me because I only had a canvas bag for a strop. My wife thought I was nuts and I wasn't allowed to spend money on things to do this right so I had to make do with things I had at hand until I proved to her this wasn't a passing fancy. Over a year after I retired my Mach3 I finally got to get REAL stuff. I STILL love my SharpMaker though and it actually would get used more for razors if I had sticks in better shape than mine.

What I wanted to say here is simply that I was always VERY happy with the hone I got out of my SharpMaker, and even though I know it's nothing like what can be achieved with the more specific tools out there for the cost of one (which is incidentally an EXTREMELY useful tool all around as has been noted) I would actually recommend it as something for a newbie to start out on instead of spending $xxx on Norton's. Kudos on your improvisation, and congrats on the results. I need to get new sticks all around for my poor SharpMaker as I've worn them (and chipped them) to death since buying it. Good job and glad to see another sheep added tot he slaughter...er umm....flock...yeah flock!

Thanks for the kind words, fellas.

A few words on the sharpmaker...

As useful and versatile a tool as it is, there are several problems which need to be addressed before considering placing your sole shaving razor anywhere near it.
- The ceramic stones are laid flat to provide a honing surface. Unfortunately, the stones neither sit flat, or even still. The stones frequently shifted position while honing. Not in a gradual, unnoticeable way, but in a sudden heart-stopping way. They'd drop in their mountings and see-saw wildly from time to time. Listing away from centre was also a frequent happening. I'd recommend fixing the rods in place with a few lumps of blu-tac to prevent such motion.

- The edge of your razor passes within fractions of an inch of the top surface of the sharpener chassis. It must be 1/16-1/8 away. I clipped the edge ONCE and I'm sure it took another hour of careful work to repair the damage. Constant vigiliance is required to avoid such slip ups.

- The user manual for the Sharpmaker states that the stones should be used dry. I ignored that, and ran a wet fingertip over the stones from time to time. The water on the rod provided a useful guide as to how much of the razor was in contact with the rod surface, and the blackened filth that acculumates in the water is a sign that something is happening when results are not forthcoming.

Things I learned:

- Its all about pressure. After two and a half hours of honing with the roughest grade rod, I still wasn't any closer to having a grippy edge. I finally lightened on the pressure I was placing on the blade, and results were swift to appear. The lighter I was, the sharper the razor became. Same goes for the strop.

- Shaving is fun when you're using a razor "sharper than a sheet of Oscar Wilde witticisims, sprinkled in lemon juice and jabbed into someone's eye".

- The wonderful world of shaving apparel has caused a disturbance in the force. My bank manager just called, said "No." and hung up. My credit card has gone into hiding.

I assume you were using the method illustrated in the DVD where Sal placed the stones in the casing with a flat surface up. I was unable to get what I considered satisfactory results using that technique and because I'm kinda a blade freak already and all I had was a cheap eBay razor I tried another approach...

Instead of using the flats of the sticks as recommended in the video I used the corners of the sticks like you would for any normal knife. As you said lighter pressure produces better results so I VERY gently ran the blade along the corner of the stick with it placed in the "scissor" station or the holder in the end of the base pointing out rather than in the knife stations on top pointing up. Also, using that technique I can't stress enough the gentleness necessary to achieve decent results and I DO recommend doing a few passes over the white (finer grit) stones but too much work there actually reduces the edge's ability to shave comfortably. I never looked into it enough to guess whether that is due to over honing or simply stripping the edge's "teeth" off causing it to be worthless as a shaving edge.

Welcome to the SRP!

It is really nice to hear a success story and also good to hear that all of our efforts has been useful to someone.
The main guy behind all of this is the founder, Lynn Abrams. He has really been the driving force behind the success of both this site and the Yahoo Straightrazorplace forum.

Be sure to let us know what your progress is in the future.