I've decided that its time for me to evolve from a lurker to a poster. Why? -- because I am very frustrated. I am still a newbie though, so I will try to be pateint.

I desperatly want to enjoy shaving with my straight razor, but no matter what I do, it never seems to shave close enough and it always pulls and tugs at my beard. Its nearly always painful.

A few years ago, I began using a double-edged razor by Merkur after finally giving up hope on catridge razors due to constant in-grown hairs and irritation. Switching to the Merkur and Shaving Brush was the best thing that I ever did for my face. My skin irritation was cut nearly in half, and my hope was that my situation would improve that much more by switching to a straight razor.

I orderd a DOVO Genuine Olivewood SS 5/8 straight, and found that right out of the box it gave me a much worse shave than my Merkur DE, so I orderd a strop. That helped, but not much. I learned everything I could about shaving technique, but that didn't improve things much either. Finnaly, I decided that it just wasn't sharp enough, it failed the "hanging hair test" with everyone's hair I tried, so I ordered a Norton 4K/8K and set out to hone it.

Well, now I've honed it using Lynn's Pyramid scheme (stopping to test along the way), and while it is sharper, it still won't pass the HHT, and it still is painfull to shave with. After shaving my whole face with it, I had to go over my face again with my Merkur DE to get rid of the stubble. One pass with the Merkur felt like heaven after what felt like scraping my face with sheet-metal.

Am I just asking too much out of a straight? Please Help!