Another Rookie

Hi Forum

I am a Brit living in a small town in western Germany. Happily not too far away from the town of Solingen actually.

I am fairly new to this type of shaving, having purchased my first straight razor about 2 months ago. This was a brand new Dovo with simple white plastic scales, which the shop owner sold to me on the basis that I should buy a low cost number first to see if I liked it. I looked at the prettier ones, and she told me to go away and practice first!

I did indeed like it, so I found a dealer in Belgium to sell me a new Thiers-Issard.

My beard grows with glacial slowness - I only have to shave once every six days. This is frustrating sometimes. I am not getting that much practice then, and today's shave was not as good as the last one (although light years better than the first one), so I was motivated finally to come on here.

I have a good handful of questions now arising from my couple of months' experience. Thought I'd introduce myself here first though!

Well, thanks for the warm welcome guys! Was it something I said?

Guess I'll have to look elsewhere for advice.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by midnightrambler

Well, thanks for the warm welcome guys!...

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That was a bit quiet. So here it goes WELCOME TO SRP. ;)

Jonathan

Many thanks for saying 'hi' Jonathan. Good to know there's someone out there! Cheers

Hello Midnightrambler! Welcome to SRP.

I had to cut my response short earlier so I am adding this...
It is cool that you live close to Solingen! I think the saleslady gave you good advice on getting the lower cost razor first. Sounds like good customer service.;)

Welcome to SRP! This place is s wealth of knowledge! Don't give up too soon, there is allot of materials so when you do make contact you know enough to ask informed questions!

Hello, and welcome, I don't come to the intros too often, and certainly not every 18 hours. Don't loose faith, generally I have found posts asking for specific advice are responded to a bit more quickly.

Hello Midnightrambler, and welcome!

As had been said, there are occasional quiet times on the forum here, but if you are patient, you will an absolute wealth of knowledge here, as well as plenty of folks who are more than happy to help.

There is also the wiki (follow the "Library" link at the top-left of the page) where you'll find information on equipment, technique, etc.

And when you have specific questions, just ask. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by midnightrambler

Well, thanks for the warm welcome guys! Was it something I said?

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I never reply faster than someones beard grows. :D

This is a great place to learn the ropes.

Welcome to SRP. I joined this last July and have found great acceptance and information from a combination of asking questions, using the WIKI and continual browsing on all the threads and responses. I've look at other straight razor shaving sites and this is the one that I settled on because it is openly friendly, informative, down to earth and non critical of my gaffs.

Ask away and ye shall be answered by one, and sometimes, all!

Here are some others in Germany......

http://straightrazorpalace.com/membe...sername&order=

Quote:

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Originally Posted by midnightrambler

Hi Forum

I am a Brit living in a small town in western Germany. Happily not too far away from the town of Solingen actually.
.............
I have a good handful of questions now arising from my couple of months' experience. Thought I'd introduce myself here first though!

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Hi & Welcome to SRP !
If you are not living too far away from Solingen, I can offer you to meet and to talk personally.
As I'm only a collector & restaurator, but not a wet shaver, you may get advice from me only to historical & technical questions.
However, if you like send me a PM and we will see...

Greetings - Rainer

Many thanks Rainer

I live in Lippstadt, so close by global standards!

By sheer coincidence I was in Solingen today to visit the Böker shop, where I picked up this:

https://www.survival-depot.de/Erste-...umsmodell.html

... not quite sure if it is any good yet though.

When you say you are a restaurator, do you do honing etc?

Thanks Rainer :)

Hi midnightrambler,
I think it can't be wrong to buy any BÖKER Straight Razor, especially the JUBILÄUMSMODELL... it should be a good shaver after some treatment on the leather strop.
I also do some restauration & honing on request.
If you are familiar with the german language you may lookup my homepage ERHASO Technischer Handel und Anwendungsberatung für Oberflächen-Endbearbeitung - HOME and push the SERVICE button at the menue frame.
There I offer resatauration & honing of Straight Razors & other historic cutlery.
By a click on the last picture you will enter my ERHASO ebay shop with some Straight Razor offers.
You'll also find my phone No. & email adress in the auction text to get in further contact with me.

Thanks again Rainer

Indeed I have heard that Böker are very good for razors.

Unfortunately I have just stropped it and it seems like bad news.

It seemed fine on the canvas side of the strop. But on the leather side, it was making an odd scratching noise on the non-printed side of the razor. On close inspection it was putting tiny hairline scratches in the leather.

On even closer inspection (i.e. very carefully with my fingertip), I discovered a tiny dimple sticking out on the corner - specifically where the rounded point meets the end of the blade. You can barely see it, but it is enough to make scratches and sounds.

I had a go with a paddle strop I have with strop paste, but no improvement.

What a bummer... I wonder if it has been dropped at some point.

Do you think this can be fixed? Is it something you might be able to do?

PS I should add to everything I've said here by emphasising that I am a newbie, so might well be getting everything wrong!

Hey guys, discussions of buying and selling & services is not allowed in the open forum. Please use the Private Message or email option to continue the discussion.

I thought that you would make this experience... that was the reason I wrote "after some treatment..." , but I didn't believe that the quality of the edge would be soo bad ...
The problem is a basic problem with the industrial maker's process of nearly all remaining producers of straight razors in Solingen...
I don't want to be misunderstood... there are still some well qualified Solingen SR Manufacturers in business ... (Wacker, Aust, Scharff/Kober) they mostly deliver a high quality... mostly "shave ready"...
But among the few larger Industrial Producers like HENCKELS(ZWILLING), BÖKER(BAUMWERK), WÜSTHOFF(JAGUAR), GIESEN&FORSTHOFF(TIMOR), DOVO, only the last one seems to have experienced personnel who has the knowledge to deliver a high quality ...
The problem is that those larger producers try to save production steps and handling time to reduce production costs... This ends up in only 3 steps after the blade is stamped out (from a blacksmith like HERKENRATH) ... Hollow Grinding, Flat Edge Grinding, Honing on the fine stone... then the scales are to be mounted and the SR is ready for sale...
Mostly a burr is left on the edge after the last honing process and those blades are NOT shave ready...
I found this out by myself when I was called by a trader of grinding stones who supplies to GIESEN&FORSTHOFF to have an advisory meeting at G&F how to get blades "shave ready" they were producing for SCHMIDT(DREITURM)...
I told them to go back to the roots and to use a leather disc with stropping paste for the last honing process instead the fine waterstone. I left them some of my sample SR's I had restored before and honed & stropped on a leather stropper to show them as reference at SCHMIDT(DREITURM) and they agreed to my advice.
They took an old leather disc out of their basement storage and reactivated it for their regular last step production process.
Since the breakdown of the Solingen Cutlery Industry in the 1960s to 90s a lot of experience is gone lost forever in the workhalls of the remainimg makers... Its soo sad...
Young modern und unexperienced engineers try (often helpless) to imitate the traditional makers production processes on modern CNC-machines for mass production, but mostly w/o sucess... Hours and hours of programming a production line cannot replace the experience and manual feeling of an old fashioned grinding master !

To solve YOUR problem... YES, I'm shure to get your BÖKER blade deburred, honed, stropped and shave ready... You may come along and bring it in after making an appointment with date & time or just send it in, my adress is shown on my ERHASO homepage.

Understood, will use PM/email.