this is a great sight with a wealth of information. It has accelerated my learning curve significantly!

Last week I decided I would look into shaving wiht a straight. Not sure why. maybe because I hate shaving so much, maybe because i have an interest in good knives and obtaining a "razor sharp edge"

Regardless, i took the plunge saturday and bought a 7/8" "barbers rattler" made by wade and butcher (after learning on this sight that they are good). I also bought a 3" by 30" peice of leather to use as a strop.

Got the blade home, honed it on an arkansas surgical black stone so that it shaved arm hair nicely, stroped it about 40 times and decided to have at it.

Result was the worst and most painful shave I ever had. Convinced me that the hanging hair test is important to pass!!. I knew my blade didnt but figured it couldnt be that bad.

I knew i needed something finer than the arkansas black to polish the edge so i put some jb bore cleaner on the rough side of the leather and tried again. eventually it would "pass" the hanging hair test if i cut the hair about 1/4" from where I held it. Thought that migth be good enough, WRONG! still got a bad shave and had to finish with a mach3.

not one to give up, i coated the smooth side of the leather with an even finer abrasive (JB bore bright) and tried again. This time I got the HHT to work at close to 1/2" . So time to try again. This shave was still nto what one would call a pleasant experiance.
at that point I was ready to concede defeat in that I didn't have either the tools or the skills neccesary to sharpen a razor so i could get a good shave so I went to classic shave and ordered the legendary norton 4000/8000. Also ordered one of Tony/s hanging strops and am looking forward with great expectations to getting them. Figuring I would shelf the razor untill they arrived.

Well today I decided I just couldnt leave it alone. In reading more about technique i found the 30 degree rule, geeze, i had been shaving with the blade almost perpendicular to my face! so out comes the razor and he strop. I removed all the abrasive from the smooth side and poceeded to strop. eventually I got it to pass the HHT at about 1"!!!

Now armed with a sharper razor and more knoweldge I plan on trying again in the morning after a hot shower. Please wish me luck as I have no stypic pencil or anything.

btw thanks so much for all the great info here. I am sure I will be posting more questions in the near future but thought you all might get a chuckle out of the missteps of a determined newbie