Hey guys,
Getting my first straight razor for this Christmas and I can't wait! I would greatly appreciate any tips and advice, as I'm quite nervous about it, specifically honing!
Hope to become a part of this community!
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Hey guys,
Getting my first straight razor for this Christmas and I can't wait! I would greatly appreciate any tips and advice, as I'm quite nervous about it, specifically honing!
Hope to become a part of this community!
Welcome to the forum!!
My advice - stay with it! It's really something to be able to say you can shave with a straight. But there will be bumps along the way. It doesn't come overnight. I vowed to only use a straight for a year. I did it - and haven't looked back!
Good luck and have fun!!
Hi & welcome to SRP. You will love it here & there is plenty to learn as there is a wealth of information on here! You will want to buy you a nice straight razor to begin with whether used or new. Beware of used ones not that they are bad but know what to look for like a lot of hone wear on the spine & edge or chips in the blade. Stay away from razors with rust on the cutting edge as that will only result in it chipping more metal off as it is honed. Here is also a list of straights to stay away from:
Brands of Straight Razors to Avoid - Straight Razor Place Library
Here is a list of good brands of razors you will want to own plus there are more than just these out there which you will find out from other members here:
Good Straight Razor Brands - Straight Razor Place Library
If buying a new razor, I suggest you buy one from Straight Razor Designs or SRD. The owner & founder of this forum is Lynn & he is also part owner of SRD. When you buy a straight razor from him, he will personally hone that razor before you get it plus you will get a certificate for another free honing for when that razor needs it which should be a few months. There will be vendors who will sell you a straight razor that is supposed to be shave ready but really won't be. You will most importantly need to know how to strop & you can learn in the Library or here:
Razor stropping - Straight Razor Place Library
You will need to strop your razor before & after you shave. If you buy one from Lynn, chances are you won’t have to strop it before you use it the first time.
You will also need a shaving brush, a shaving mug & some shaving soap. Later it will also do you good to get a second straight razor so that when you send the first one out to be honed, you will have a backup to shave with.
Here is a link to the Library where you will find stropping in there & everything else you will need to know including how to hone:
Straight Razor Place Library - Straight Razor Place Library
Here is another good link to know:
Welcome to the Workshop: How do I / Where do I / What do I / answers are here
Should you have any questions, there are a lot of knowledgable members on here that will be more than happy to help you out. If you want to find someone in your area, you can look here:
Local Help - Straight Razor Place Library
And if you can't find anyone near you, just ask and someone that lives in your are & hopefully they will let you know how to meet up & you can get some one on one mentoring. There is a lot to do on here, just search everywhere on the forum & in the Library. You will spend hours on here & have fun doing it, so there you go, have at it!
Good luck & have fun!
Steve
I think good starting point that you can get going with right away, is to get a brush and some good soap and start making lather. It will immediately improve your shave no matter what you are using as a whisker wiper. You can also do your beard map and practice skin stretching with your shaving. All things that will make it better. If you have a strop you can practice the motion of stropping, substituting a belt for the strop is possible. The other thing that is very important is to read in the library about beginning shaves and watch a few videos. Lastly, welcome to the forum. I hope you enjoy it here.
Hi and welcome. As said start with the library. Also important is to make sure that your razor is coming shave ready. It is also best to learn shaving before honing and when you do start honing learn on a decent but cheap razor as it will take some practice to get decent. Good luck and any questions feel free to ask
I've often heard that shave ready razors aren't - you may want to find a honemeister to sharpen it properly before taking it to your face. Also remember to strop the stuffing out of it before your first shave. After that first stropping you can ease up on that step, but I might recommend at least 50 on chromium oxide, 50 on the fabric belt, and 100 on leather.
I'll second that motion. I learned that lesson the hard way too. If you aren't proficient at shaving or honing and you screw around and dull your blade with an amateur honing job like I did it will significantly increase the learning curve. I put up with a month of trial and error, bad shaves, and razor burn that I really didn't have to. But once I got the stones in hand curiosity and my tinkerer's nature got the better of me, and I paid the price for it lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by eddy79
One final piece of advice - store your razor somewhere dry. I shaved one morning and left mine in it's usual spot in the shower. One of the room mates took a hot shower and the next day there was a thin surface coat of rust. It was my fault for leaving it there, but it did burn my behind a bit. Also, you gain a whole new perspective for the line in "What would you do with a drunken sailor" about shaving bellies with a rusty razor after you've tried shaving with a rusty straight. I figured that thin barely there surface coat of rust wouldn't hurt it - boy was I wrong. After that first good stroke there was no backing out, so I had to do the whole thing and it felt like it was ripping the hair out rather than cutting it. :dropjaw:
If you have a professionally honed razor most people would recommend not stropping it prior to first use, especially if you have never stropped a razor before, there is a chance that you will spoil the edge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshal
and I certainly wouldn't put pastes anywhere near it yet.
Thanks for the correction! I guess it makes sense they would strop it themselves and have it truly shave ready when they hand it back.Quote:
Originally Posted by edhewitt
I mentioned that in what I wrote but there's so much you may have missed it! I agree with edhewitt.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshal
Sure enough, I missed the part where you mentioned you could skip stropping if you purchase your razor from SRD/Lynn.
I know..................I wrote a book!Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshal
Yes, you may want to think about chapters or subheadings or something :)Quote:
Originally Posted by engine46
Hello and welcome, read everything. Make sure it's shave ready, forget honing right now. Learn to strop, if you need any help let me know I'm 18 months in and have probably made most of the mistakes!!
It might help........................Quote:
Originally Posted by edhewitt
Hi, Welcome to the forum,
Where in the UK are you?
Im NW, Merseyside.
Welcome to SRP Liam, no need to be nervous it's all good.It's like anything in life practice makes perfect.
Just take your time and it will all fall into place.The best thing you can do is to read all the tips n tricks given to you by this fantastic brotherhood that we are so lucky to have,then put everything into practice, one step at a time. Good luck with your journey and enjoy the ride.
Welcome to SRP.
Read everything in the library and your set for everything you need, you really dont need any more info than what's there.
If you haven't already got a straight theinvisibleedge.co.uk sells a good line of dovo, thiers issard, boker, vintage straights and all other shaving paraphernalia. Each razor is inspecte,d honed and stropped by steve. He also provides a honing service. Neil Miller at strop-shop.co.uk also provides a honing service, he also sells vintage straights, natural hones and his strops are second to none.
Good luck with your journey.
Thank you everyone for your help! Im more worried about damaging the blade than myself, guess my priorities are in the right place though? I'm down in Devon in the UK, farm land really, but it makes for fun wilderness practice and camping on Dartmoor!
I'll make sure to practice the shaving without actually shaving, any recommendations on shaving cream and mugs?
Well, you live in the UK, and there are quite a few good to exceptional shaving creams to be had there:Quote:
Originally Posted by Liamnelbarker
(1) Groomed
(2) St James Cedarwood & Clarysage
(3) Gentleman's Tonic
(4) Castle Forbes
(5) Floris N° 89
and then there's the classics Truefitt & Hill, Taylors of Bond Street, Trumper's, DR Harris. I do prefer the ones above though.
There's a lot of online vendors as well.
Thank you very much, greatly appreciated :)Quote:
Originally Posted by decraew
Well I think that palmolive is pretty good, and inexpensive, and as for mugs - I use a large coffee cup (the ones that are about 5" across).
Though any bowl will do, i get mine from charity shops, just look for something 4-5" wide and 2-3" deep. Same thing with a bit of texture on the inside is good but really not necessary.
It would never have occurred to me to look in charity shops! Thank you!
I reckon you have a good chance of picking up something unique, look at small cooking pot type things and general crockery as well as the ornaments, just consider how you will hold it, you either need a handle or to be able to hold it from underneath, unless it is really small or you have massive hands and can grip it around the side.Quote:
Originally Posted by Liamnelbarker
I used to hold the item and pretend to lather up an imaginary brush :)
Hey Liam, I have a $5 bowl from a supermarket, when considering the bowl/mug I look for a fairly deep bowl with steep walls. There needs to be enough space inside for you to swirl the brush around without rapping your knuckles on the side. I know the later is a good consistency if the last lot I cleaned off the brush with the lip of the bowl is about halfway down the bowl. It can then be incorporated into the mix at the bottom. Too thick and it will not move down, too thin and it will just wash down the side of the bowl.
Ok, here goes. As far as shave bowls I have one of these:
Amazon.com: Buffalo Horn 3.5 Inch Palm Shave Bowl shave bowl by Hand Made Shave Bowls: Health & Personal Care
And one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Colonel-Conk-M...rds=shave+bowl
I will say this, I was expecting a wider bowl when I ordered he Colonel Conk's bowl. It is a little on the small side, but it does get the job done. But the bowl itself is, in my humble opinion, less important than it's contents. I much prefer the horn one I posted a link to before, but the one I received doesn't have that nice color transition. Mine is all black. I found that to be slightly disappointing, because I was really hoping to get one with some transition. But such is the nature of natural materials like horn. They come as they are, and you make what you can with what you have.
My go-to shave soap is this:
http://www.amazon.com/Aged-Spice-Fra...=1418359233786
I don't know if you're familiar with the scent of the original Old Spice shave soap, but this is very close to what I remember from years gone by. Takes me back to when I was a kid playing with my grandfather's shave bowl lol.
On a whim I picked up this:
Amazon.com: Col. Conk Worlds Famous Shaving Soap, Bay Rum (Net Weight 2.25 Oz): Health & Personal Care
Which has a scent I absolutely love. I don't know if you're familiar with the scent of Bay Rum, but I absolutely love this stuff. Both lather up and shave well in my opinion. And you can put the cake in whatever bowl you get, toss it in the microwave for about half a minute, and form them to the shape of your bowl. In the case of the horn bowl, once the soap I had in there wore down I had to pluck it out and cut gouges into the bowl before melting more into it. The soap gets a little squirrel-y and will move around as you're trying to work up a lather. Very annoying. Using a pocket knife to cut gouges into the bowl has given the soap something to grip once it's melted to the form of the bowl.
I haven't had that problem with the other bowl, but whatever bowl you choose it's an easy solution if you do run into that problem. That's also assuming that you use cake soap rather than creams. If you use creams, obviously that won't plague you as bad lol.
Welcome liamnelbarker! Enjoy the journey!
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by edhewitt
Or just use a soup bowl :)
Try some different formats of stuff available in your house to see what you like.
Personally I use a kind of bowl my wife made, diameter about 15-17cm, hight maybe 5cm.
So about 5 X 2 inches then :)Quote:
Originally Posted by decraew
and yes I have used a soup bowl in a noodle bowl to make a basic scuttle.