Well Davis, I do qualify as a newbie by sheer lack of experience with the straight ;) but in my heart, I am a honemeister in training. I already had some decent honing equipment for woodworking tools, but the razors have forced me to make some significant improvements in my equipment! I got a straight from a GF last spring which she picked up at an antique shop. I tried shaving with it right away but gave up when my 6000 waterstone wouldn't do the job vowing to make a good run of it when the opportunity to get the right stuff arose. I basically used christmas to get hooked up with a good new razor, brush, soap, and strop.
Since then I've found all kinds of stuff with the help of the internet and the guidance of a few unknowing honemeisters (I've been digging in the archives pretty deep :o ). In the last three weeks, Ive ordered or won on ebay 13 straights, three strops, a scary sharp package with some extra leather honing pads and pastes from .25 to 3 micron, the beginners barber hone package, DMT durasharp coarse/xcoarse (for those damaged razors that need serious work prior to really honing to razor edge), and I'm hoping to order one of Bill Ellis' razor restoration CD-books to get some of the skinny on repairing or refurbishing some of the razors ordered. I saw xman's W&B rebuild and would love to do the same thing to some old blades to make a new 7-day set of some kind!
I'd say I'm hooked, but that would somehow devalue the reality that I've been almost looking for fishermen to cast at me! The only challenge is trying to get my tough beard to submit as readily to my new straights as it has learned to for my old gillette sensor.
I can't wait to have a razor that's as sharp as a brand new blade for every shave, just not quite there yet. They'll split hairs above the arm, but still don't shave me as comfortably as the sensor yet. I can get pretty close over the whole face, but it takes time and repeated passes. The first pass is still not very close and there is still a drawing feeling. So I just keep honing and polishing and stropping and trying again :rolleyes: