inset Two And A Half Men theme song here.

Hi folks. Stopped by for some information to lessen the learning curve of my new found ritual. Found my grandfathers razor with a strop. First shave down, minor cutting involved! Was greatly surprised to find it so sharp and clean. Best I can tell its pre 1940. After that close of a partial shave on the checks and the neck (I currently have a beard but am shaving it off this Christmas for a gal) I am hooked. Was quite nervous on the neck line as the thought of slicing myself was ever so sharp in the fore front of my mind. If anybody has a good youtube link for polishing up a vintage knife it would save me some valuable time searching. Thanks.

Welcome to SRP!

There's a lot of great folks and info here. Check out the library.
If you're wanting to do anything to a razor, head over to the workshop section and search there for what yOu want.
I know a few members have YouTube channels.

Enjoy and have fun

Welcome to the forum, Scratch! I've not seen any videos on polishing a straight razor, but all you need is some polish like Simichrome and some cotton swabs. Just be careful not to slice up any of your digits. :)

Easy thing is metal polish, Mothers mag polish, never dul.
Another way is 0000 steel wool and wd40 with some elbow grease. That is most likely your least invasive option. As stated be careful of your edge. It is so easy to cut yourself or damage your edge.

I would really like it if you did not do anything with that razor for three months. It would be great if you put it aside, along with the strop and picked up some inexpensive gear to learn with. I know that sounds off, but let me explain. You have an heirloom razor and strop. They are priceless. There is only one ay to get them, and not everyone gets one, never mind a set. The other important part is many new shavers inadvertently damage there razors and even more completely frigging up there strop, sometimes beyond repair. So it is in the spirit of the preservation of your pieces.
I have an heirloom razor. It is the crown jewel of my collection.

Welcome to SRP!! Sounds like you are off to a great start!! Might as well take the beard off now... Leaves more real-estate for shaving!! :)

Shawn
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Welcome aboard, Scratch.
I'm with Rez on this, unless your already proficient with a straight and strop, please stop.!
A have only one heirloom of my father's, a Gillette DE I had bought for him when I was in early grade school. He never used it, and I only use it on his birthday's since his passing away.
So I feel he saved it for me actually, though I'm committed to straights, there's a lot of good memories of standing at the shave counter, alongside me pop's, sharing a can of goo, and a bottle of skin bracer.

Get another razor and strop, save those for a special day.
You might be able to pass it on to yours, and the history behind it. So Priceless..!!!

Hello Scratch and welcome to SRP.
I'm with Rez and Outback on this one. I was never fortunate enough to have any heirlooms passed on to me in the shaving department. Treat them as treasures and enjoy your time here on the forum.

Pete <:-}

Im with the guys. Dont try to polish. If it is as shave ready as you say it is, it only takes one slip to cut yourself. Also one smaller slip to damage the edge. Then you would have to send it out for honing.

Get another. Have it pro honed by one of the guys here, and learn. Keep grandads in a safe 0lace till you got over 100 shaves passed. Then enjoy the oldie but dont go messing with it. It has history. Thats what those marks on the blade are. Try not to damage. When you get full confidence in what your doing and still want to restore it then go for it but for now...

Btw, welcome to the group!

Thanks for the opinions guys. I will get a new one and strop and see how that goes this winter, I have plenty of time to find one I really like and learn what quality I can afford. Heirlooms are hard to come by and I cherish mine, even if that cherishing is miss guided at times. I oiled the blade today and put it back in its box and treated the strop so it wouldnt dry out anymore than it is and tucked them away in the closet being sure to hang the strop up so as to not damage it. It hung in my dads closet for decades till he passed away. I never knew what it was for till I found the razor. Well the knowledge I only ever recieved from it came in the form of bum whooping lol. I was quite the ornery rascal growing up.

A good razor at reasonable prices can often be found in the classifieds here. I have two different thought trains on strops. Concept one is to buy a good strop that you can replace the leather on once you have finished nicking it up. Concept number two is buy a quality inexpensive strop like an Illinois and once you have killed that one, buy a nice one. The Illinois strops can be found new for very little money. I went with concept one and that has always seems the more sensible path to me. Either way it bring you to the gold standard in shaving since 1876.

Welcome Scratch!

Few of us are fortunate enough to have any heirloom shaving gear. The chances of your ruining it if you are just getting started is very high. Hitting the faucet with the razor the wrong way can ruin it. It is much easier than you would imagine to cut a strop in half, therefore, I agree with the others on learning on something else. I just saw your last post and see that you have agreed with this.

Also, I would advise that you have the razor professionally honed. Same with a restoration if it needs it. Same for the strop.

Unless you are a machinist or similar role, the chances of messing them up are too great.

I'm glad you are here and hope you'll be active on the forum.

Welcome to the forum. :)

Lots of great advice so far. I would just add that as it appears you live in Missouri, you are near some great honers and Straight Razor Designs, so you have a lot of options if you just reach out. A hands on honing and stropping session is worth a thousand YouTube videos!

You are really blessed to have an heirloom razor! I hope you'll pass it on to the next generation as well.

Hi and welcome. Any questions feel free to ask