Quote Originally Posted by pinklather View Post
Chef, 'Grats on taking the plunge. The little Imp will be a nice razor. 'Good US wedge, which can be really nice to learn with. Keep track of that square point or it'll tutor you. If this makes for your first razor, I would strongly recommend not learning to hone at the same time as you are learning the shave. I DID make that mistake, and there's a reason I'm called pinklather. When learning the shave, you need very good edges. It'll be a while, when learning to hone before your edges are that good. In the mean time, it can be called suffering. Almost everyone will tell you to get a pro quality edge. They're not shilling for money - they don't get any. The pro that does it is making less than minimum wage. They say it 'cause it'll make your learning experience ALOT more enjoyable. If the Imp is shave ready, or not requiring restorative grinding before honing, there are several ways to get free honing. The Coti boys - used to be coticule.be, now artisanshaving.something used to offer free honing. Members reported wonderful edges coming back from Bart.

On stones, the coti usually takes a fair amount more skill to get satisfying results than any synthetic. Some guys get it right away. I didn't get decent coti edges until trying them on over 100 blades. (I honed blade #302 in the last hour). I got shaveable edges, but hardly ones I'd want to live with day in and day out. I'd strongly advocate starting w/ synthetics (norton or Nani). If I recall, the La Verte is a soft stone, which will have issues of its own w/ auto-slurry - the blade stroke raising slurry from the soft surface. (Coti guys - pls. jump in & correct if I'm wrong here). Maybe 'cause of my own suffering, I feel strongly about starting out w/ good edges that are strong on the smoothness attribute. If that imp is in decent shape, I'll hone for just the cost of the bubble mailer and postage. PM me if you'd like.

Above all, enjoy your learning - have fun at it!
I'm more looking to have a stone that will help me maintain a very sharp, smooth edge, as opposed to actually hone, and set bevels, etc. At least for the time being. I was just hoping to prolong the time in between having to send my razors out..I have a very coarse beard, and even professionally honed shave ready razors have produced some tugging the few times I've used them. Jarrod @ superiorshave suggested that aside.........ah. heck,here's his email response to me:........" hi

It is always possible that a beard's coarseness combined with the thicker angle of incidence of a straight razor's bevels would mean that you're better off using a "shavette" type razor, or the Feather Artist Club system, because these will both tug less (but never have as polished of bevels).

However, I would try to find a "la verte" or "la veinette" coticule, these are the sharpest ones to me for sure, with the verte being my preference between the two. Unfortunately we only have small bouts and more expensive large rectangles; we are all at the mercy of what is coming out of the ground." So do you guys think that'll do?

Thanks for your help,
Basil ..my name is Basil also