Thread: New and ready to take the plunge

Originally Posted by malaverdiere

How much the strop material makes a difference? I've heard of people stropping on denim and their own skin!
Murray Carter is famous for stropping on newspaper wrapped on a sharpening stone - and considers green compound on leather a notch below a luxury.
Back in knife-land, I tried various options without getting the impression that one is superior to another.

That doesn't mean much though... My deburring skills still suck big time.

It will be a lot easier if you think of knives and razors separately. A knife you just get sharp. A razor has to be sharp and smooth and the edge is much finer. Green compound often has particles larger than the stone grits we finish razors on and leave a harsh edge. We use razor quality crox rated to 99% pure and .5 micron. There is a lot of information here about it and a search will yield a lot of good reading. We don't raise burrs and consider doing so unproductive waste of metal. Watch some of Gssixgun vids on YouTube and he will explain a lot for you.

So I had my first shave. A Dovo Best 6/8 shave ready from CassicEdge.ca. Using a somewhat wet hair, I performed the hanging hair test, and I'd score it at HHT4 - it didn't pop instantly on contact with the blade, but it didn't take much to.

Time to shave.

I took a shower, applied the Proraso foam to my cheeks and neck (I'm keeping my beard for now).
I waited two minutes and tried various grips on my razor - can't say any of them felt comfy, but it was workable.

So I pulled my cheek and shaved WTG with my dominant hand on both sides. Moved to my neck - that was much harder to pull it without anything slipping. I worked bottom up - still WTG, but shaved the bottom before the upper neck. I passed on that stubborn spot on a few times (and didn't think of reapplying shaving cream there). After nearly face-palming (don't literally do that with a razor in your hand!), I reapplied shaving cream and went for a second pass. Put Nivea sensitive skin aftershave afterwards.
This morning I see a nick on my cheek that wasn't there yesterday - so something very superficial.

I found that shaving without glasses wasn't hard on my face, but trickier on the neck.

Lessons learned: don't pass a second time without lather. And wear glasses the moment I'm done with the upper cheeks.
Also, I'll learn to shave with the other hand - flipping the razor is a a little tricky.

As an update, I shaved less than 5 times with it before I was feeling excessive irritation and having some hairs surviving two passes.
I talked to the folks on the #srp IRC channel and they diagnosed my razor as suffering from 'stropping with too much pressure'
So I had to send it to ClassicEdge for honing. Good thing that the owner is so helpful and noob-friendly!

That being said, I'm investing in a 8000 grit stone and some compounds - I'm Mr. Clumsy Hands and I need a way out of my next screw up.

Stropping can take a while to get good enough to actually improve the edge. Until you get to that stage I would recommend not using compounds as they will increase the damage caused by poor stropping. Good luck with your shaves and your edges

Originally Posted by eddy79

Stropping can take a while to get good enough to actually improve the edge. Until you get to that stage I would recommend not using compounds as they will increase the damage caused by poor stropping. Good luck with your shaves and your edges

In other words - you're telling me not to rely on compounds for touch-ups. If I screw my edge again by poor stropping, I should sharpen it again with the stone, and only use the compound after the stone?

If your stropping is damaging the edge stropping on compound will make it much worse. The stone may give better results as it is flat and not flexible. Just make sure you use light pressure and keep the razor flat. Maybe check out the Gssixgun vids on YouTube