Thread: honing or possible shaving help needed

Howdy, this is my first post here but I have been reading and surfing these forums for awhile. Right now I am having problems with my straight razor and I am not sure it it is me or the razor. I have had it " honed" by a professional and when I got it back. It did not give me the desired shave.
After I tried shaving the first time I stropped it. It did a slightly better job, but nothing I was impressed with. I thought it might be the razor so I spent a little more money and bought another razor. Which said when purchased it would be hand honed before sent.
That shave was still not impressive like I see everyone talking about.
I understand that honing a razor is different than a knife. And I respect that fact. I have done a lot of research and watched the video on the forum. Still I am incapable of getting a close shave. Definitely not the closet shave ever. Finally I decided it was my technique while shaving.
I sat down got out an old skinning knife. Cleaned it sharpened it shaved with it. Closest shave I have seen in awhile. I didn't strop the skinning knife. And the finest stone that was used was a hard Arkansas stone. But for the razor I use a 4000/8000 Norton combo water stone. Does anyone have any ideas to help me. Or maybe tips on what I may be doing wrong. I will got back to the ingrown hairs of the Mach 5 if i have to stay with the skinning knife. Lol

That was the best shave skinning knife lol.

I have only just started with straight razors and when I received the first one I did the usual prep that works fine with a DE and shaved after stropping.
Not a great result it must be said, no nicks or anything like that just not a close shave so I stropped again, next shave nothing great so stropped yet again, basically I put it down to poor stropping.
I had bought the straight from another forum member and he kindly offered to check it and re hone if necessary and when I got it back it worked fine.
I have another straight and when the first was away getting re honed I must admit that my technique was getting better, I was getting a closer shave almost every time.
My result was that I needed practise on the straight as it differs greatly from the shavette I used before, together with the poor stropping technique I was using when I started which together made for a poor shave.
Now stropping correctly and starting with a checked and honed razor I'm getting good results.

Based on your post I can only assume that you were duped into believing that both razors were honed. Read up on straight honing and hone your own. Start with the process you used to hone the skinning knife and improve from there with an 8k grit stone or higher.

Thanks for the tip about going back to the process of the skinning knife. I tried to many methods and this morning sat down for about an hour and a half to figure out what works best for me. Don't get discouraged like I was if people have a tough time honing. AFDavis advice help me find what worked best for me and all I can say is wow. Best shave I have ever had. Took awhile to learn the razor on the hone. A lot of wear for a new razor. But well worth it. Thanks for the tips and advice.