Thread: Hi from the UK

Welcome to the forum.

Hi and welcome aboard. You will find all you need here. Good luck and any questions feel free to ask

Welcome to SRP! Hope you have a lot of fun.

Thank you all for such a warm welcome!

Welcome, you have come to the right place.

I wouldn't rush into the restoration/honing stuff immediately. If you have a shave ready razor you only need a strop to go with it.

You will find if you take to using a straight you will quickly end up with a few more shave ready razors. This puts off the need to hone even further as your razors are used less I have about five in rotation. I didn't really look at hones for about six months, there are places to send your razor for honing if it starts to feel uncomfortable.

I only say this because at first you will nick your strop, possibly ding the razor on the sink or taps. Once you get to grips with feeling comfortable holding the razor and your stropping technique is there, that's the time to look at honing. Even so I only refresh my razors on a finishing hone. I don't need to go back to bevel sets and the like.

Good luck with your journey, there are a few places here in the UK that you can get some good supplies from.

Originally Posted by Porl

Welcome, you have come to the right place.

I wouldn't rush into the restoration/honing stuff immediately. If you have a shave ready razor you only need a strop to go with it.

You will find if you take to using a straight you will quickly end up with a few more shave ready razors. This puts off the need to hone even further as your razors are used less I have about five in rotation. I didn't really look at hones for about six months, there are places to send your razor for honing if it starts to feel uncomfortable.

I only say this because at first you will nick your strop, possibly ding the razor on the sink or taps. Once you get to grips with feeling comfortable holding the razor and your stropping technique is there, that's the time to look at honing. Even so I only refresh my razors on a finishing hone. I don't need to go back to bevel sets and the like.

Good luck with your journey, there are a few places here in the UK that you can get some good supplies from.

Thanks for this - at the moment I'm cleaning the razor (age related grime etc) before sending it away to get a proper hone. That bit is definitely out of my league at the moment, and as you say the idea is to be able to alternate - this one was my first purchase based on it being a reputable older marque, but cheap enough to find out if I get on with it first!

I'm also looking at picking up a paddle strop and getting some balsa strips cut to do pastes for upkeep (this seems less messy as it's then not permanently on the flipside of the paddle..)

Thanks for your input!

Keeping the paste away from your primary strop is not a bad idea. It saves tracking any abrasive elements onto your leather.

A paddle strop is good to start with too. I learned on a paddle strop but quickly went to a hanging strop and now my paddle strop has some CrOx on it.

For a cheap starter razor I got a slight second from theinvisibleedge.com which came shave ready. Honestly I can't see why it was a second and it is still in my rotation. There are other places that sell them just check that they are shave ready.

I ended up getting a second razor because I dropped my first one whilst stropping it. I sent it out to be re-honed to remove a small chip that resulted from the drop. Then I got the bug to add more to my collection.

I initially looked into this as a money saving thing but that didn't work as I now have several razors a finishing stone two strops and three brushes! Not to mention several soaps. The thing is I now see this as a hobby and so I don't mind spending some money on it. I now look forward to my daily shave so it's money well spent.