Thread: Second month of straight razor shaving

I had been shaving with a safety razor for about a year and made the jump to a straight razor a couple of months ago. I got a 5/8 Ralf Aust from SRD along wtih all the essentials. I can say that there is of course a learning curve to this art but I am getting better with every shave. I do have a couple of things I would like some advice on though. 1) My stropping technique was poor for about the first four weeks (too much pressure I think) and now I am noticing more drag when I shave. It has improved some since my stropping has but my question is will that work itself out now that I am stropping correctly or do I need to send it off to get honed? I hate to waste my one free honing certificate this early if I can help it. 2) I would like to learn to hone myself so as I aquire more razors I don't have to depend on someone else to do so and wanted to know what essentials I needed to get to start to learn that process. Since I would not want to ruin my one good razor learning how to hone I figured I wuold just hit up Ebay or a flea market to get some cheap razors to practice learning on. Any advice and/or comments welcome. Thanks!

Avant

Im pretty new also, but ill take a stab at it. So your noticing your razors dragging, you could try to touch it up with some crox on a bench/paddle strop or a barbers hone, or at bare minimum strop the crap out of it like 100 laps on linen then 100 on leather. If your gonna buy stones to hone and do cheapie razors first (which sounds like a good idea) you will likely have to have a Lower grit i.e Norton 220/1000 combo, and a 4000/8000 combo and crox on a strop for finishing. SRD has a norton honing kit with both these stones plus a lapping stone. Thats the way i went. Good luck and enjoy!!

For your lagging edge try a high number of stropping or the crox as suggested. For honing you will need a 1k stone for bevel setting and a 4 and 8k or equivalent to finish up. There is no point going higher than that until you are getting a smooth shave ready razor from the 8k as if you are not there at 8k going higher won't help. Most use either the atoma or dmt d8c for lapping as they are flat and work well. Most agree the norton lapping stone is not much good and will need lapping itself. Hth. Good luck

Buy some chromium oxide powder and mix with a small amount of mineral oil, before applying it to a strop/piece of linen. You could buy a chromium oxide crayon also which works although are marginally more expensive. Either way, you'll have a pasted strop for easily less than $20.

Give it a go - if i cures your problem then all is well and if not then you still have a pasted strop that *will* come in handy later on for touching up the edge when it gets duller. You can't really lose by giving it a go.

There are many ways to go here. I think CrO paste is one valid and inexpensive way to go as is a barber hone or some sort of finishing hone. Lynn has a video on youtube about refreshing a razor. I would recommend watching that.

Thanks to everyone for the helpful advice. I will watch Lynn's video and give it a go.

Avant, are you aware of the big meet-up in Ashville on the 26th and 27th? Last I heard Lynn was planning on being there to do demos, and talk honing. I think there are around 50 of us signed up to be there. It would be great to see you there.

I was not aware of that, how do I go about getting the details and signing up? Thanks for letting me know about this, I would really enjoy it I am sure.

The thread is here; http://straightrazorpalace.com/get-t...l-26-27th.html

hey Avant ,
im totally new here and have only been straight razoring for about a year . i have been sharpening knives and tools a lot longer than that though .
once honed , i use wooden backed leather bench strops and CrO followed by jewelers rouge .feel i get pretty good results , im still learning too. Ive been told some people use hard backed bench strops regular also . maybe try a bench strop ??
this site is awesome , there is soo much info to learn from !
good luck improving !