Thread: Gidday Gents

I hail from New Zealand, but have been living and working in Brunei for 25 years.
I acquired an old Gotta straight razor (see photos) from a second hand shop some years ago.
I read some web sites at that time then went out and bought a Jemico Russian leather strop and a Col Conk light grey Surgical Arkansas stone with the idea of getting into SR shaving.
I tried shaving with the Gotta a couple of times after stropping it a few times - without really knowing if it was shave ready. The results were a shaved face, not too much razor burn, but the shaving process seemed somewhat akward and time consuming and so the Gotta was shelved for some time.
I have now found this forum while looking for details about the SR and the Col Conk stone I have.
The Gotta has developed some minor corrosion on the edge while in storage and I would like to bring it back to shave ready condition. It has not been put on a stone by me yet and I'm very glad I found this site before attempting to restore the edge myself.
Some posts say my grey Arkansas stone is about 800-1200 grit and many in this forum say is not recommended for razors (there are execeptions on this point I note). It would seem that what I need is to invest in a Norton 4000/8000 stone.

As for restoration, I was thinking pehaps I should remove the surface scaling and rebevel it with the Conk Arkansas stone, then follow the pyramid method on the 4000/8000 to bring the Gotta back to shave ready.

As a novice to SR honing and shaving, any tips your members would like to share on honing, stropping (and why we strop?) etc would be very much appreciated.

I wonder if any members can inform me about the Gotta's heritage - as it seems well made.

It says on the front of the blade: HAMBURG RING - GOTTA - SUPERFINE
On the font shank it says: 120 GOTTA
On the reverse side of the shank it says: FINEST SHEFFIELD STEEL FORGED AND REAL HOLLOW GROUND IN GERMANY

Hopefully I'll get it 'shave ready' an have the satisfaction of a decent SR shave yet.