Thread: Greetings From Canada

Originally Posted by tms

Hi tcrideshd,

Yes, I'm pretty committed so I won't quit in the short term. I did notice a lot of pulling which I know many people have indicated is not indicitive of a sharp razor (one of the reasons I bought one there) so I'm experimenting. Since I don't currently have a razor that I can confirm is "shaving sharp" and he has had good reviews here, I was hoping to, a least, learn what that meant so I knew what to strive for with my own sharpening. You arte the first to suggest that they do not sharpen a razor to "shaving sharp," so if this is the case, I'm still without a razor that can be an example.

All razors bought from Classic Edge come professionally honed and a follow up honing is at no charge.

https://classicedge.ca/index.php?rou...ory&path=71_60

When I started to learn to shave with a straight razor I had Phil hone a couple for me and even though I could not shave well at the time I did recognize that they were indeed shave ready. That is especially so when compared to my early attempts at honing my own. Hind sight is a wonderful thing.

There are many reasons a shave ready razor may not shave well in the hands of a beginner, been there myself, and range from wrong angle, poor lather and poor stropping among others. When you get a shave ready razor the advice for a beginner is not to strop it before first use because poor stropping can degrade a shave ready edge. Very few at the start can strop truly well and that is from personal experience. If you then strop a shave ready razor before your second use of it and find the shave worse than the first use without stropping you have a pretty good indication that your stropping is not up to par.

I think a lot of people have very high expectations about how good a shave with a straight razor will be when starting out. The shaves can be excellent but it takes about 3 months of shaving every day with a straight razor to gain a decent level of proficiency with one in order to get that decent shave. It is a steep and longer learning curve than most had thought, myself included. When you start to learn to hone your own it is more of the same. Been there also and all of that was made even worse as I was self taught with no mentor anywhere near where I live to give one on one tutoring.

You are lucky in that there are quite a few members in southern Ontario in and around TO that could help tutor/mentor you. If you can I would reach out to one of them to see if they can help you.

Bob