Thread: Newbie questions

Hi Everyone

I have some pretty basic questions I was hoping everyone could help me with. I'm very new to straight razor shaving having started a couple of weeks ago but i think it's going pretty well. I have managed to hone my own razor (a Dovo stainless steel). My setup is very basic i am sharpening on a 4000/8000 then straight to leather strop (no paste).

1. I seem to have the blade sharper on one side than the other and not sure if this is due to stropping or honing. Has anyone had this problem before and what was the solution?
2. I have managed to go with the grain and across the grain however when I go against the grain (third pass) the razor seems to grip rather than cut straight through and i'm a bit scare i'm going to cause damage so i stop. Is this a results on the razor not being sharp enough?
3. Does the X pattern when honing improve sharpness? I find it difficult because you have to take one part off the hone and apply just the right pressure. Does the x pattern when honing give better results?
4. When using a 1K hone i understand people use tape on the spine as to stop too much metal being removed. I found this odd because i thought that the way SR were designed what that the metal proportion removed at the spine somehow aligned to the removal of metal at the edge and that is what makes the edge sharp. When i hone i have the spine also running against the hone, is this correct? why do people tape the spine?
5. Is the HHT done before stropping, either way i rarely get this test to work and the blade just moves the hair instead of cutting it. Do people actually get this test to work consistently? Do i need to move onto pastes to get this test to work?

Thanks hope all the questions made sense!