How did you begin - first razor, shave, etc

I'm curious how yall's start went. The more I look at new razors edges being not shave ready or frowning or whatever, the more I just feel lucky. Whether that was lucky to be ignorant or luck to have gotten a good starter razor I am not sure.

About 20 years ago, on a lark I decided to get a straight razor just for another cool knife. I'd never even seen one up close. I walked out of the store with a Col Conk kit that included the razor, strop, brush, honing stone, and some basic advice on stropping for about $70. I got home and obviously had to try it once. I didn't know anyone with any experience, so did some research on the internet and had at it. I loved it and used it for a few years until I ended up growing a full beard. And, it still gives me close comfortable shaves.

I have never used this paddle hone thing because I have no idea what it is. Feels kinda like pomace. But, I have extra razors now, so who knows, maybe I'll try it out. Paul just hones off any old rock he finds, so what harm can it do?

Yall'd yell at me if I didn't put a picture...so....

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Oh, I didn't include the brush because I am not sure if it is the one I still use or if I replaced it at some point.

I started thirty some years ago, before the internet.

No help, self taught, i was 17.

Got my first straight, while working for a local farmer.
He had a small,ranch hand house that he wanted to renovate. While I was cleaning out the root cellar, I came across three rusty razors. Out of the three, one survived enough for use. After a good cleaning, I could see it was a Torrey, 4/8ths.

I only had a few hones that were mainly for knives n such, but I had one that was fine enough for me to get it to shave. It may be no more than 1K, but then I took it to a leather belt that I'd pasted the suede side, with different automotive polishing compounds, I knew would refine it some more. Then of course, the clean side of the leather belt. Then to my face, covered in canned goo.

I shaved that way for many of years, like, just 6-7 years ago. Then I learned about all the various stones/hones when I joined this forum. Changed everything..!!

1k challenge..... Huh! Lived it...don't miss it. But it made me to learn my hones, and what their limits were. And overall, become a better honer.

I think the 1K challenge, is a worthy thing. If you believe I your abilities as a honer, you should try it.

RIP

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I got my start with a straight by joining in on a pass-around box.

Someone that had much more money than he knew what to do with made 5 boxes with 5 razors in each box. The boxes were sent out to guys who put their names on the list. When you got the box you had to own a strop and you got to keep the box for 2 weeks I think it was. That gave you enough time to try the razors out and get a chance to try and use a few different Straights. At the end of your time, you had to send the razors to the next guy on the list at your cost. small priority box. Also, you got to keep one razor from the box.

The guy who started these pass-around boxes would send another razor to add to the box so it always had 5 blades in it. When they got damaged or needed honing you sent to box back to him and he would take care of it and send it to the next guy.

It was a great way for me to learn and get my feet wet in straight razor shaving. And to know if I was going to like it. One other thing you had to do was post a shave diary of how it was going, what you were using, and that kinda stuff.

Here is the razor I got from the box. My first Straight Razor... Sweedish. I learned the odd name stood for Butterfly.

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I did restore it a couple years later when I join SRP and learned what it takes to restore razors.

When I was young I liberated my great grandfathers razor from my father. The barber at the time was a cranky old military barber. I bugged him and bugged him for two years. Finally he honed my razor, showed me how to strop and explained it to me while shaving all 16 of my whiskers. I had a leather belt to strop with, and that took me to after high school. I then worked on the water, and grew a beard. Occasionally I would get a shave in a barbershop. Fast forward many years, and I was required to be clean shaven for work. The internet had come along in my beard years. After some research I found a few factors which most agreed upon. Buy a shave ready razor of the best quality you could afford. Classic edge set me up with a kit, and I was away. After some time and a couple of razors in, I came here more or less to try to figure out more about honing and restoring. I have since accumulated a lot of stuff.

I got my start almost before I was old enough to shave. I had just a little more than peach fuzz and had always watched my dad shave. Of course I had the little play cup and brush and plastic razor when I was a little boy. I think my dad got me that for Christmas one year or something. I was so little I don't even remember.
Anyway, so I had just started shaving with one of my dad's old DE's and thought I had a handle on it. I think I was about 15. He had a straight razor that I think was my grandfather's which he didn't really use very much but I do have some, not very many, vague memories of him using it. My grandfather died when I was about six or seven so I was still pretty young. I always thought the straight razor was really cool and I loved more than anything to watch him strop it on his old belt.
One day when nobody was around I decided I had enough ass in my britches to try the straight razor. I got it out and lathered up with his old Hazel Atlas mug full of Williams and his old boar bristle brush, he always used boar, soaped myself up and went after it. At the end I thought it was pretty good. Nice and smooth to my notion. So this was on a Saturday afternoon. The next day, as always, we went to church. I don't know why he was the first to notice it or at least to say something about it but the youth director, who was a real character, looked at me, wrinkled up his brow and said, "Did you get attacked by a cat?" I guess I hadn't even really looked in the mirror closely but when I went into the bathroom and looked I had all these tiny little scratches about half an inch or so long all over my face. I did however eventually learn how to use it correctly. It wasn't until years and years later my dad gave me that straight razor. I still have it, his old Hazel Atlas milk glass mug and some other paraphernalia of his including his old belt strop and some barber hones. Those were the only hones that I ever saw him use for razors. He may well have used that giant gray brick that I also have but I don't really remember him using it more than a time or two that I can remember and not on his own razor. I like Mike used that razor and those couple of barber hones by themselves for a long time, at least 10 years before I discovered that there was information on the internet about straight razors. I came here looking for information on one that I had bought and then the world full of other things opened up to me as well. I too think that the 1k challenge is a very good trial to put yourself through. It can be very... enlightening.
Oh yeah, I guess I should post some pictures of my heirloom gear.
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I bought my first razor about 50 years ago at a flea market in London, England while I was on holiday. I was in my 20’s. It has no maker’s mark on it, but it looked cool and was cheap.
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I tried shaving with it, but it was DULL and I did not own a strop at the time and had not even heard of a hone, so it stayed in a drawer for about 5 years.

On a whim, I bought a new razor which actually had a shave ready edge on it out of the box and got hooked. Then I discovered that my dad had two strops in his basement, one of which I have since learned was made by Naomi san. I bought a Norton 4/8 and was off to the races, self-taught through trial and error.

A few years later, I did an internet search and discovered the original SRP. That’s when my collection started to build because I began to feel confident about maintaining the functioning razors I had and trying to restore the ones that were marginal. Seeing what the folks here were able to do and having them care enough to explain how they did it was inspiring and made me feel like someone was always there to help.

My first straight was part of a beginners kit from Classic edge that included a shave ready Dovo Astrale, a board strop, brush and soap, that was in Oct 2019.

The day it arrived I lathered up then immediately washed off my face and went on the internet to find out how to use it. I discovered SRP and learned so much.

I managed my first shave, was sent razors by Outback, soon after a Barbers Hone by Dzec and when after I had been honing for a short while, PaulFLUS sent me some blunt razors to practice on.

It hasn't been long in the greater scheme of things but I went from not knowing how to shave to 15 razors and a full set of synths as well as Arks and Coticle, and it's all thanks to the things I learned on SRP ( and it's enablers) :chapeau

I hadn't even touched a straight to my face before I found this forum and I when I hear your stories of how you started years ago by teaching yourselves to shave and even hone through trail and error, I am amazed and full of admiration. If I didn't have the internet and this forum specifically I know for a fact that I would not be straight shaving today.

To be completely honest, if I had not had the internet, straights would never have been even on my radar because it was only by stumbling on a store that sold them and thinking how cool they looked that resulted in me wanting to give it a go. I knew it would be a waste of money but I got one on an impulse and now here we are.

My older brother bought me my first straight razor, a Dovo from TOBS.

I didn't want it nor anything to do with them but he insisted i would love it..

Some time later and after TOBS insisting it was shave ready from the factory and 2 professional honings i still could not shave with the stupid thing due to tugging..

I then got myself a Hart Steel razor honed properly and had my first decent shave..what a palava :/

wanted to try a straight razor shave, so I started looking for barbers around me to have one. Not many... Instead found out I could do it myself. Got a Dovo shavette to try and have been straight shaving (with an occasional SE or DE thrown in) for ten years.

This has really been interesting. I have heard parts of these stories that have come up in various threads, but not all put together. I have to say, the "share a box" gasman started with is just a cool idea. I have never heard of such a thing.

To STF's point about "self taught" I think I could say that I taught myself how to shave, but honing perhaps not as much. I will say I didn't get much help, but if that cheap Col Conk razor had been warped or wonky, I am not sure what I would have done. Just plain ole flat x strokes. I am not sure I would have stuck with it if I had to try to figure out rolling x strokes and such no my own. So, there again, I feel lucky with my first razor.

I false-started about six years ago. Was reading about straights on the forums, LOVED the look of them and the concept of shaving with such time-tested tools of our forefathers. Got four razors honed by a member of this forum (spectacular edges, btw). Gave it a try. Bloodsport. Quit after seven or eight attempts on weekends only due to how long it was taking me to shave so carefully.
Fast forward to the beginning of the pandemic. Needing a distraction and loving everything wet shaving, I decided to try straights again. Read about razors, grinds, honing (almost derailed me) and watched videos about shaving technique. Lots of reading, lots of learning. This time around I started slow and kept at it. Very light touch. Did not force extra passes. Did not try for BBS. Loved the experience. Been shaving exclusively with straights for just over a year. Love em'!

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Originally Posted by octoserge

I false-started about six years ago. Was reading about straights on the forums, LOVED the look of them and the concept of shaving with such time-tested tools of our forefathers. Got four razors honed by a member of this forum (spectacular edges, btw). Gave it a try. Bloodsport. Quit after seven or eight attempts on weekends only due to how long it was taking me to shave so carefully.
Fast forward to the beginning of the pandemic. Needing a distraction and loving everything wet shaving, I decided to try straights again. Read about razors, grinds, honing (almost derailed me) and watched videos about shaving technique. Lots of reading, lots of learning. This time around I started slow and kept at it. Very light touch. Did not force extra passes. Did not try for BBS. Loved the experience. Been shaving exclusively with straights for just over a year. Love em'!

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Good deal! Glad you found success at last. Persistence is the key.

I guess it was around 35 years ago. I had been using a DE for sometime and just happened to see an article about straight razors somewhere. Around the same time I just happened to stumble upon the original SRP site (Yahoo Groups). So, I decided to try. I bought a TI (which was sharp out of the box) and that was the beginning. I think my first soaps and bowls were from Col. Conk.

As they say, the rest is history.

Oikay, I'll have a go. I was walking around the new Riverwalk Mall in New Orleans, I guess about 30 or 40 years ago. More like 38 I think. Pre-internet. I knew my Grandpa had a straight razor given to him by his dad, but he used a Gillette 3 piece, don't know the model. Anyway my first shave, some decades previous, was with a Gillette Super Adjsutable, the one with the black handle, and a Personna 74 blade, or maybe the Gillette Spoiler, I don't know. I used both. Went through the whole business with newfangled cartridges, then the Trac II, and of course it was canned goo right from the start. Anyway back to the Riverwalk. There was a knife shop and I was just looking. They had a Dovo razor and the owner saw me admiring it, said Dovo made the world's best straight razors. I knew it was no good without a strop, and he didn't sell those. I assumed that since it was brand new, it was still sharp enough to shave with. Naturally, right?

So I bought it. A Best Quality. Cool. The best quality from the world's best straight razor company. I was stoked! Took it home. Tried to shave. It didn't shave but it did half skin me. I tried stropping on a belt. Leather, right? Just like a regular strop, except I already had several and I couldn't find a strop strop, so I used my belt strop. Still didn't work. I stropped that thing for literally thousands of laps No joy. So I figured I needed to sharpen it on a stone. I knew knives. I knew stones. I was a fisherman and a seaman. I worked with knives every day. So I sharpened the razor. No joy. I asked a barber, he explained that I needed to keep the spine on the stone. Tried that. No cigar. Asked a different barber. He GAVE me what now I know was a coticule, and explained a little about slurry, and I sharpened it again. After a thousand or so laps with slurry, I had a bevel and it would shave arm hair as good as my pocketknife. But the problem was, it wouldn't shave my face. It was torture. My pocketknife actually shaved my face with less trauma!

Okay so I figured that barber didn't know what he was talking about or he gave me a stone that belonged in the trash, and that's where mine went. I tried India stones. Arkansas stones. Sandpaper. I shaved, but it wasn't nothing pretty. But the straight razor was now my shaving method. Or scraping method. Then, in a hardware store in Matamoros I found a huge natural stone, kinda translucent. This rascal was a foot long and wide as my hand. It was obviously a LOT finer than my arkansas stones, even my Smith Tri-hone, I think it was. I just needed a finer stone, says I. Well, that stone didn't seem to do anything at all. If I had known better I would have lapped it, and honed with a much lighter oil. I put thousands of laps on that razor. Every time I shaved, a few hundred more. I realized that the toe was getting worn on one side of the razor, and the heel on the other. So I started forcing the issue, using lots of pressure. Then I went back to the soft and medium arkies for a while. Then the fine one. Eventually I figured out that my stones, except for the big dino-stone, were dished and it was affecting my edges. It was fine on my work knives, but I realized that the razor needed a flatter bevel. Things were starting to come together for me.

So I started blaming the razor. Found a Boker, I think, in a junk shop (the sign even said junk shop) in I think Palacios, TX, and whaddaya know... it honed right up and I shaved with it, best shave ever. Looked like I only spent HALF the morning sorting wildcats. Over the next few years, my honing got better, my shaves got better, and the Dovo went over the side, Knowing what I know now, I could have made it shave just fine, but I still wasn't there yet. So the vintage was my daily driver. By this time I had a strop, given to me by another friendly barber. Years passed, Al Gore invented the internet, and I discovered that I could learn just about ANYTHING at 14,400 baud. Eventually found B&B and then I had mentors, sources, how-tos, and all that. My shaving success improved within days, literally. Along the way I had tried another Best Quality, and a Col. Conk, with no more success than with the first Dovo, but I had a couple more junk shop and flea market rescues, and a bunch of rocks and stuff, and I had progressed through boar, black badger, and pure badger brushes, Williams and VDH soaps, and other stuff. The online scene opened up more possibilities and horizons and I opened up my wallet and jumped in with both feet.

Then I learned about lapping film from Seraphim, one of my mentors, and left the stone age behind. Chinese silvertip brushes were a game changer. I started hearing about balsa stropping and pastes, starting with a Whipped Dog strop kit, and several of us started refining the process. I restored some razors, and discovered cheap fodder for modding, in the Gold Dollar 66, and created some razors that I was quite proud of. I learned a bit about smithing, and made a few razors in the bbq grill and a hole in the ground, out of 1084, 1095, leaf springs, old files, old saws, and some were not bad. some kinda sucked, but they were mine. Vintage blades captured my attention again, and I lucked into a pair of Bismarck #2's and really liked them. Modded a few more Gold Dollars incorporating the best features of that razor. I badmouthed Dovo endlessly until someone loaned me a Dovo Bismarck. Hey, not bad!

So I tried a few more new razors. The King Cutter was reintroduced after a long hiatus and I snagged one. Then a Prima Klang. A few Japanese razors, a Heljestrand, a couple of English razors and other German razors. By this time the lapping film and balsa Method were out of the lab and ready for prime time, and me and others started teaching that. Teaching a new method of doing something that only 10 or 15 years previous, I barely had a clue about. All from the internet. A bit full of myself, I explored other forums, including this one, under previous management, and managed to get myself banned by bucking a very strong bias against the brand that everyone loves to hate except the newbie and the budget constrained, the Gold Dollar. At that time there were several in the community that honed and sold them. I found a yahoo group dedicated to the GD and I mean dedicated. Militant GD users. So hardcore, my modified Gold Dollars were regarded as near blasphemy. Now, I dabble in selling them. (on vacation now.)

The shop is coming together in bits and dregs. As soon as I build my twin grinder I will probably start making razors again, but this time I have a thermostatically controlled Paragon kiln and a bucket of genuine Park 50.

So there's my straight razor past, and possibly my straight razor future. I have other types of razors, but most days it's a straight razor for me, usually either one of my Gold Dollars or one of my 6 or 7 Bismarcks. I love the Bismarck but the GD, that's like the little razor that could. There is something about buying a razor for way south of $5 and shaving with it that strikes a chord in me somehow.