Thread: Best Tips

Hollow-grounds are overrated.

Definitely the pyramid honing method I found on the mighty wiki here along with all the detailed instructions on how to manage the angles on the WTG, XTG and ATG passes, the grip, lathering.... all I found was in this place, undoubtely the best information source on the web on the straight razor world.

Greetings!!!

My tip is when you try to hone razors you should lap your hones often. Between every razor you hone you should give the hone a few laps to clean off the black stuff. This becomes a lot easier when you use a lapping plate instead of a plate of glass and wet n dry paper.

Buying Lynns Vidio The World Of Straight Shaving .Especially The Shave Part. When I First Started Using A Straight Razor I Didnt Have A Clue About Straight Razors It Really Helped Alot

"It is not recommended that you try to shave your entire face the first time you shave with a straight razor."

Without this tip I am pretty sure that I would have tried to do too much and had a poor first experience.

My razors were not staying sharp and a mate of mine in the UK - said "Your not doing x-strokes ?" !
So lo and behold , I started doing that and by crom , they sharpened right up . Reason I didn't before , was I read that beginners should stick with easy up and down strokes . Since I had a 3 " wide strop thought I was doing well .
Better late than never !

Cheers,

Scott

My best advice to a new shaver would be to KNOW YOUR FACE. Feel in which direction your hair grows everywhere you'll be shaving...then learn to shave with the grain first.

Easy does it--better to have a hair too long than a cut too deep.

I extracted this "tip" from the honing demo Dylan gave at the recent NYC meet. Dylan went from setting the bevel up through a finishing stone, and we all had a chance to feel the edge each stone put on the razor. This made the learning curve so much steeper, at least for me, and I would suggest anyone new to honing watch an experienced person hone a razor and feel the edge along the way.

The tip is, you have to "calibrate" the way a razor feels when you cut arm hair off of each stone. (Or in my case leg hair.) Each stone will cut a little different, and if you pay attention you can feel it. Without this, it'll be tough to know when to move to a higher grit because in my limited experience, the numbers game won't work the same on every razor, or even the whole edge on the same razor. Having a way to test the edge is tremendously helpful.

As I hone, I'll cut a few leg hairs to see if the edge I get off a particular stone is even across the edge and if it's "right." I doubt anyone can really explain this since everyone's hairs are different, so you really should just learn what works on your hairs and gets you the shave you want.

Hollow Ground razors rock.

Dont cheap out on your soap/cream. A bad lather will cause you to have a bad shave from a lynn honed livi at the end of the rainbow.