Hi all,

Yesterday the mailman delivered my new Dovo SR and a strop from SRD. I have not tried either yet. Actually I have not tried any SR yet having been a cartridge shaver most of my life, though I am so old that my first razor was a DE - state of the art at the time. After that it was a Schick Injector single edge, as I recall.

I'm not altogether sure how or why I have come to the point of wanting to try SR shaving. Several weeks ago I set about sharpening all the cutlery in the house on a newly acquired Norton 3-stone set and after some practice managed to get scary sharp edges. After telling the wife the knives were sharp enough to shave with I actually tried it. Wrong! Those knives won't shave. So that led me to the interweb sharpening sites/videos which in turn led to razor honing and shaving. I was intrigued. I should mention that in the last couple years I have taken to wearing fedoras and suspenders and, while I have not wholly adopted the vintage lifestyle, I seem to be leaning that way just a bit and SR shaving seems to fit right in.

So here I am. Haven't tried the SR yet but have been reading, and reading here, watching Lynn's vids, and getting ready to try it. I picked up a junk no-name straight for a couple bucks at a thrift store in order to practice stropping technique before putting the Dovo to leather.

But my wife keeps asking if I have lost my mind, why do I want to risk "cutting my head off" when I can actually get a good enough shave with what I have now. I haven't actually been able to come up with a good answer other than to say, "it's a Zen thing," or "I just want to see if I can do it."

I plan to start slow, as is recommended, and I'll let you know how it goes.

Braz