Thread: Is this a good idea?

So I went to the Flea Market on a whim. I found a guy selling junk straight razors for $5 each. It was raining heavily and everyone was leaving so i offered him $10 for 3 of them and he took it. I also bought a norton 4000/8000 from Amazon the other day, and my intent was to practice on the junk razors i bought until i get a good technique down. I don't want to ruin the Dovo that i bought from The Art of Shaving that is far from Shave Ready. Am i wasting my time trying to teach myself in this manner or will it be worthwhile? I am armed with a bunch of Youtube videos and quite a bit of patience. Is the Norton 4000/8000 a good hone to learn on?

You are wise not to attempt to hone your Dovo - send it out for a professional honing so you have a shave ready razor and a benchmark for your own honing.

The Norton 4/8K is an excellent choice and you'll need it at some point in your journey with straights, especially if you want to hone your own. The only way to learn is to keep trying, so go ahead on those junk razors!

1) send your Dovo to be professionly honed - you will then have a benchmark... and a great shaver.
2) lap your norton before you do anything - http://straightrazorpalace.com/honin...ing-101-a.html
3) $5 dollar razors can kick-back hundreds in feel-good dividends - http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...thin-lose.html

I did not have the luxury of starting with a 'shave ready' razor. I did, however, have this forum and the collective knowledge of it's user base that I used to my advantage.

When I started honing I did so after watching Lynn Abram's DVD "World Of Straight Razor Shaving" - available from SRD. I lapped my norton (2). I kept refining my technique until I was getting a better (or as good as a) shave from my own restored razor as I was from the thing I had been shaving with before. I had to set my own benchmark.

I have made many mistakes... I have nicked my strop... I have drawn blood and scraped myself raw and would not change a thing because now I am getting the best shaves I have ever had and it's cost me less than one trip to the grocery store...

Here's hoping you don't make as many mistakes, or spill as much blood, or suffer as much discomfort, but end up enjoying your shaves as much as I do.

Your plan is sound, except that you may need a 1K stone for setting bevels. I worked on a blade last night that didn't need much done to get the bevel right, decided to stick with 4K instead of going lower (numerically) in grit, and spent almost an hour going nowhere. I avoid the lower grits when I can, but if you are setting a bevel, and the razor you are starting the bevel on is dull, you may have to go lower than 4K.

Get a 1k King or some other 1k stone too, and you won't regret it. They are cheap, and speed up the process by a lot. +1 to the above said, get the Dovo honed by someone, and you will have a gold standard you can reach with your honing. Read a lot here in the forum and the Wiki, and you will get all the answers you will need.

"junk straight razors for $5 each"

Those razors may actually be swans in disguise.
If you have not done so already; learn about them, before you hammer them to death on a hone.
You may want to send them out to a member to be refurbished. One of them may turn out to be the best razor you will own.

this is a great idea as others have said, so long as '$5 junk razor' translates to 'antique in need of a good honing' and not 'cheap aluminium/stsinless steel misc country made razor shaped object'

If it does translate to the latter, however, then it won't matter a mote since he's paid very little and like all of us will most likely trash the first one but learn a lot in the process.
Unless it's an aluminium blade, then it will clog the hones. Bad mojo.

Originally Posted by Hirlau

"junk straight razors for $5 each"

Those razors may actually be swans in disguise..

Unfortunately they are no swans... They are brand new Plastic scales, poorly made junk with made in china stamped on the blade...

Thank you all for the replies and advice. I can't wait to start working on honing my honing skills...

Looks like I am off to buy a 1k and start work.

When you get the norton make sure you lap it until it is smooth and flat, about an 8th of an inch needs to come off to make it usable. If you don't have a 1k stone use the 4k with slurry until you can shave arm hair at the skin on the whole blade, thenn use it with water until it pops hair. 8k should usually cut hair mid length and almost effortlessly with less of a popping sensation. This is a generalization of arm hair tests but you get the idea. Pm me if you want for help.