BrickBag

Hello everyone at SRP,

tl;dr: I'm BrickBag, a 23 year old newbie to straightrazor shaving.

A little bit about me
As said before, I'm 23 year old and currently a final-year student of informatics(specialising in networks and computer security) working on his bachelor thesis. I live near the lovely city of Utrecht in the middle of The Netherlands.

Getting into straight-razing
I started growing whiskers at about 14 and have shaved my face using several kinds of razors. The first was an electrical Philips(hey, i'm Dutch) razor which I used for 2 years(1 shave a week), by that time a friend of mine told me that he was shaving using a safety razor and that it was much better than electrical razors.

So I bought myself a Gillette Mach 3(which was new at that time) and a can of shaving cream and was quite content with the result. I used the Mach 3 and later the Gillette Fusion(with 5 blades) but I wasn't happy with the results after the shave: my skin became very red(especially in my neck), sensitive and the smoothness didn't last. So I bought myself a 1 bladed disposable Wilkinson razor about 6 months ago, which made shaving a little better.

About 2 months ago my girlfriend bought me a shaving soap from "De Vergulde Hand" and a boar brush, I had the best shave of my life using those tools! I then started to wonder "How would old-school shaving be?". I mean, if shaving with a simple disposable blade and shaving soap if so much better, how will straight razor shaving be?

So I went to my barber and bought a simple Filarmonica razor which uses razorblades for about 15 bucks(I didn't want to spend a lot of money, since I didn't know I was going to like it) and surfed the web to check for instructions and got to the SRP wiki. Using those instructions I got a really nice shave(and some nicks).

And going on...
I now want to get myself a real razor, but my internship doesn't really pay generously, so I'm gonna restore a razor(A J.A. Hellberg, Sweden 26) my girlfriend gave me last week(I'll open a separate thread on it after I finished this one), which will be a nice weekend project for the coming time.

So again: Hi!

Update: Thread on my restoration here

Welcome to the forum Brickbag. Good luck with the restoration of that razor. There are people here who could give you some good advice on just that, to be sure.
Failing that, you can always check out the classifieds on the forum for an in-expensive shave ready razor. I will recommend Holli4pirating. I've used him twice and find him good for fast friendly and reliable service. I'm sure the others are good too, I just haven't used them myself yet.


Mick

Welcome to SRP! Most people take a while to in learning to hone a straight razor and get a good edge. Have a good time restoring your razor but I would suggest having someone that has honed a lot of razors sharpen the straight for you. Learning to hone and shave with straight razors is a bit much to take on all at once. Best of luck to ya. We will be happy to hear of your adventures and lend assistance if needed.

If you are trying to save money, the cost of hones will outweigh the cost of just sending it out to be honed.

You can't restore a razor on your kitchen sharpener.

Thanks for the welcome people.

@Joel and jeffegg2:
I was hoping that I would get some advice on the entire process. And I'll nag someone for their hones, or I'll buy a 4k/8k combo. I would love to have someone show me how it's done in real life(I've seen loads of youtube video's on it), but I can't really think of anyone in the Netherlands, the shops offering sharpening services only do knives.

But it'll be a nice journey for me to learn a new trade(woodworking, honing etc).