Thread: Honing a "Selective" razor

Before I discovered this forum I purchased a Selective strop that came bundled with three new straight razors. The strop didn't impress me and trying to shave with those razors was a disaster. I bought a vintage straight razor on E-Bay that was advertized as shave-ready, and it was much better, but I was still having a hard time getting a good shave. After discovering these forums I bought a couple of Lynn-sharpened Dovos, and discovered what a shave-ready razor was. I then bought a Norton 4k/8k combo stone and a Japanese 12k superstone to hone up my vintage razor. I posted a thread asking about the Selective razors and got unanimous responses that they were junk. All the criticism was regarding the quality of the steel. I decided that while I had my hones out, that I would see if I could put a decent edge on one. Ha! I discovered that the edge and the spine were not even close to being parallel! I could lay the edge flat on the stone, or I could lay the spine on the stone, but not both. What junk!

Sometimes the voice of experience actually is right!

Yeah, the guys here wouldn't steer you wrong. But I will say that I've seen quite a few great old razors that weren't perfectly parallel either. They can be honed fine, it just takes a few tricks. I think most of the problems with the selectives and the z-word razors (z**pk) deal with junk steel that wouldn't take an edge even if the blade was perfectly shaped.