Recently i've gotten intrigued by the idea of using a straight razor because cheap disposables just don't do it for me, and expensive ones are just that, expensive. Once had a girlfriend who worked for gillette and she handed me a package of razors, some were pre-production prototypes, and that lasted me five years. Once they, and her, were gone, i was on my own in the drug aisle at the supermarket. I've used a brush and soap for years and have a keen interest in edged tools, being an amateur woodworker, so this seems like the next step.
I've been lurking here a bit, reading about honing and stropping and getting confused by all the terminology, and i've got to say, you guys are WAY more finicky than most woodworkers i know with the waterstones and all.
I bought an old Wade and Butcher blade yesterday for 8 bucks and honed it on an india stone, finished it on a white arkansas stone, stropped and got a nice edge. All the waterstones are fine, but if i'm stumped in the workshop with a setup or such, i try to figure out how they did it in the old days, and i doubt waterstones were around in abundance in say, 1915.
I read a lot of the cautions about buying crap on ebay, but couldn't resist a Red Star 917 from Solingen Germany for short money. I can't afford 125 bucks plus for a new Dovo, so we'll so how this works out. Hope to learn a lot here to make my morning shave a reflective and contemplative experience.
