New Member and Straight user here

Hello my name is Jake and I am new to this forum as well as straight razors.

I still need a long way to go learning how to hone razors and how to get my shaving technique down.

I have a 5/8 Ralf Aust and a vintage J.A. Henckels 78 1/2 5/8 INOX razor.

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My first shave was messy. I did my best to work up a good lather using a brush and Omega shaving soap but I did get lots of cuts so I am wondering if it is just pimples along the skin or bad lathering, or perhaps bad edge? I sharpened these till they passed the arm treetop test but I didn't get as close a shave as I would have liked after going with grain, cross grain, then trying against the grain.

I am thinking of getting a coticule for experimentation purposes, but so far I have a 10,000K stone, 1 micron compound on balsa, and a leather strop but am so far unable to get either blade to pass HHT. I know that these tests are ambiguous at best but I would like the satisfaction of knowing that my sharpening and honing skills are at least up to snuff .

Anyways, nice to meet you all!
Jake

Welcome to SRP Jake, nice pair of razors. Take a step back, learn to strop and shave first.

Welcome to the forum. Yes, do take a step back and learn to strop and shave well first before tackling learning to hone. Send those nice razors out to be honed by a reputable pro. There are quite a few members in Cali so if you can try and get some one on one with a member there. It is the best way to learn.

Bob

Hi and welcome. Ad said get at least one pro honed so you can have a benchmark for your honing afind a honing mentor if at all possible. Good luck and any questions feel free to ask

Hello, Jake. Welcome to Straight Razor Place!
Those should be great shaving razors when you get them honed. :tu

Hit has been said , learn to strop and shave, right now you don't have a clue what a good edge is , so how can you hone one? One step at a time , plus with getting a great edge you will be able to figure out what is wrong with the shave , mwhich mostly it's technique, Tc

Welcome to the forum Jake. Slow down my friend! There are lots of members in your part of the world - try to meet up with someone and pick their brains and get some demos. I'm sure someone will be in touch with you and volunteer their services. For now, practice your stropping with a blunt knife to get your technique right. It's a vital part of the whole experience. That can't be emphasised enough. Your RA is a beauty. Get it pro honed first, then just try a WTG single pass shave. Do that for a while before you try ATG or XTG. Until you have good technique and know what you're doing with a properly honed and stropped razor, you're just gonna make your face very sore. If you intend to start honing yourself, then you'll need a good range of grit stones and a way to lap them. Buy a couple of cheap razors to practice with or you may ruin your best. SR shaving is steep learning curve. Slow and steady wins this race. Good luck.

Thank you all for the much needed advice and welcomes.

I am not particularly new to sharpened tools, as I am a kitchen knife aficionado and hobbyist sword polisher so I know my way around my 15 or so stones BUT...... Straight razors definitely need you to get up that learning curve as far as knowing what a good edge is and how to use it properly. I am fairly certain I need your guidance in these coming months to help me figure out just what a good edge is. I know that sharpening is a bit much of a jump, so for now, I will focus on stropping technique and the most important aspect of proper shaving technique.

I am thinking that I may have used too much pressure on this first shave, leading to irritated skin and cutting the uneven parts of the skin and going prematurely into XTG and ATG. Part of being too excited I guess haha.

One thing I would like to ask you more experienced members is to what level of edge toothiness do you stop stropping at? I may have over stropped my RA because when I tested for the treetop test, it didn't really grab hairs but when it came from Lynn Abrams, it had more bite to the edge. Perhaps it was my own user error in this case? I only did 30 light strops on leather as a pre-shave strop.

Toothy isn't something aimed for on a razor. 25 linen and 50 leather is a good starting point for stropping. You don't want any pressure on the razor just to wipe away the lather.

Hi Jake & welcome. Those are some very nice razor's you have there but like everyone said.................kick back & start from the beginning in the Beginners Guide in the Library here & go from there. Also get you a strop & practice with a butter knife so you don't cut a nice new strop up. We've all done it at one time or another. There's a wealth of information here, it is almost endless. Look on the main page. You will see a link that says "Your First Straight Razor Shave". There is another good one on here called "Anticipation". You start in the Library & also read those two titles I mentioned, then go from there. Yu will find that knife sharpening & straight razor sharpening are different. Just whatever you do, don't ruin the edges on those beautiful straights. If you need to, send a couple out to be honed or all depending on your budget. You can find someone to do it for you in the Classifieds under Member Services.
Good luck my friend.

Maybe you stropped away the edge, more new guys and knife guys degrade their edge stropping, it's the most important aspect of maintaining an edge. Properly stropped good edge will last a long time. And as far as stropping too much , not likely , if done right you won't degrade your edge stropping, I know guys who strop hundreds of laps, my self I still do 35 linen and then 100 on leather , and always , you don't shave with a knife , most guys on here know sharp things and where a knife ends is usually where we begin, it will come but learn to shave right and the edge will last longer and learn to strop so you don't damage the edge, plus if it came from SRD. You were supposed to shave with it before stropping to see what the edge should feel like, Good luck. Tc

Hi, welcome , stick around, and it has been said many time before here , get one honed first professionaly so then you at least have a benchmark for learning what sharp is. it is impossible to learn how to hone and shave at the same time

and hobbyist sword polisher ...........
I wish I lived near you! That is one hobby I would like to try. :)


You have a 1 micron paddle, a 10K stone and a strop. Use them in that order.
Try a routine of 25 laps on each and then test using the tree top test or any other test your comfortable with. After they start tree topping then gently strop for 50 laps and test shave.
An excellent beard prep will help a lot and light pressure when shaving with very little angle on the blade,................. < 30 degrees.