Hello everyone I'm new here
Hello everyone, I'm new here and this is my first post, in fact I think it is the first thread I have ever started anywhere on any forum ever. This seems to be a really good community, so I feel like its a good place to start.
I got interested in straight razor shaving this year when I came across it while researching moustaches for a two month moustache contest that I did (as you can see from my sweet handlebar in my avatar).
I am new to all of this, and I have yet to receive everything that I ordered in the mail, but I should have it all by next week at the latest and I'm really excited to get started. Any way now that I have introduced myself I look forward to getting to know everyone and really getting a running start with all of this.
Ok today was the first shave
Alright, well today was the first shave, and already I have made several mistakes, but I think it went well overall.
So yes, the razor that I got was "shave ready". It is a dovo prima silver steel from straight razor designs, and so was pre-honed. Although I could not get it to pass the HHT. I had bought replacement scales from dovo that I liked, and so I replaced the scales first. This ended up well i think, with the exception of one thing. The pin was placed as tight as it would go, there was no extra play in it at all, and it all fit very flush and tightly, but when I open the blade, it pretty much swings freely, instead of having more of a "stay in one place feel" that it had originally. Does any one have a suggestion about this, is that normal, or did I dot describe it very well. I did note that when I removed the original pin there was a slight bend in it, right where it held the blade, the pin that dovo sent with the scales had no such bend.
mistake 1) So I had mistakenly ordered a Zeepk strop from ebay (I have since seen the suggestions to stay clear of Zeepk and ebay), and it did seem like complete crap, and that is coming from someone who had never seen a strop in person before. I ordered a "paladin strop from ruprazor.com, subsequently, but was still excited to start so I decided to go ahead with the Zeepk strop for now, and I just tried to avoid the irregularities in the leather (I really did not strop it much, maybe like 10 passes, as it was supposed to be shave ready). Still could not get it to pass the HHT, but it did cut hairs on my forearm if i ran it along my skin.
So I read the beginner section after I tried shaving instead of before, because I could not contain myself (mistake number 2). So I did not do the whole dont shave your whole face the first day thing. It went ok, but I thought that it was "pulling" more than I had expected it to, I went with the grain, and used my dominant hand for my entire face (which I later read not to do). The chin was hard, and I did not get it as close as I would have liked. I then did a second pass on my neck going against the grain, but I kept it at 30 degrees (which I later head should have been 5 degrees) that irritated my skin a little). But I only had one small nick on my left side burn, when I attempted to use my non-dominant hand. Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to give an update and get some advice if anyone has any. Thanks everyone
