Thread: Hey there everyone!

Well I read that I need to be sure I do an introduction, and I'm trying to follow all the rules here, so here it is. =)

My name is Dan and I've been shaving with a DE razor for the last 2 years. I just recently made the switch over to straight razors starting with a few changeable blade straights such as the Magic Razor, the Fromm Shaper, and the Dovo Shavette.

About a week ago for my 25th birthday gift to myself, I made the transition over to a real straight by going over to vintagebladesllc and spoke with Jim (who's a very nice and helpful guy by the way) and wound up purchasing his starter razor/strop combo set consisting of a 3" vintage blade's brand red latigo strop, and a Dovo carbon steel "best quality" 5/8" fully hollow straight razor with black plastic scales.
Then I did my research on hones and went over to amazon and purchased the Norton Waterstone starter set consisting of a 220/1000 grit combo stone, a 4000/8000 grit combo stone, and a lapping stone.

This is where my nightmare started.

Prior to purchasing the razor, I dove into the "deep-end" and became obsessed with straight razors, and watched hours of videos including lynn's DVD and many youtube videos, and also read pretty much everything on SRP's wiki pages, and also did a good amount of reading in the forum threads...
Unfortunately, the one thing I couldn't really find any answers on was how to clean the razor to get rid of hard water buildup, and soap residue that eventually builds up and gives the metal that white cloudy look... And after owning my new straight razor for less than a week and being as meticulous as I am, I noticed a few spots on the razor near the tang on the heel of the blade and in the middle of the blade's edge half way between the heel and toe after about a week's use. I was really kind of upset about this because I'm always so careful to thoroughly dry the blade and scales after shaving and I also even strop the blade again to remove moisture from the blade's bevel. Nervous that it was potential pitting or the start of rust, I had my father inspect it and he seemed to think it wasn't rust at all, but rather hard water stains. So I figured now would be the time to clean it to make sure it's not the start of rust.

So after not being able to find any info on how to clean the straight razor blade or scales, I remembered the video that Mantic59 posted on youtube on how to clean my DE razor with a diluted white vinegar and water solution. I have used this method to clean my DE many times in the past and it has worked great. But knowing that I'm dealing with a different type of steel, I thought it would be best to try speaking with someone at dovo to see what they recommend. I figure that obviously the people at dovo would know how to recommend cleaning and maintaining their own product.

After sending off an e-mail to a woman named Anne Rothstein asking how to clean the metal blade and scales on the straight razor, she sent me a reply stating that I should use a decalcifyer. So I responded that I wasn't sure what they were and so she responded by saying it's the same stuff you would use to descale your coffee maker. So I explained to her that the last two coffee makers I've owned just say to use white vinegar to descale and so I asked Anne if this would be safe. She said yes, and to just to make sure that it's diluted in water and not to let it sit for any more than 20 minutes.
Well, playing it on the cautious side, I only let it stand for 3-5 minutes and then proceeded to pull it out and use a tooth brush to polish the blade. To my horror, when I removed the razor from the cup, I saw the whole blade rusted, and was completely shot! I was absolutely horrified and nearly in tears... So I called Jim over at vintage blades, and I think he felt really bad for me and told me that this was poor information on Dovo's part and said that he would take my razor back and ship me a new one, and send mine back to dovo. And furthermore, informed me to make sure if I have any further questions, to go to SRP... So here I am! =)

First order of business is to find out how to properly clean my razor blade and scales without ruining the razor.