welcome your at the right place, there is more help here than you could ever use! as for honing your own razor with your knife stones ,not really advisable and if your not familiar with straights it could be a sad story for your new razor. if it comes shave ready from a reputable source you just need to learn how to shave first then move on to honing,, that way you will have a god benchmark on what is shave ready ,, any way good luck ,ask questions and have fun tc