Hello all!

You can call me Max. I'm from Montreal, Canada and have been shaving with a disposable-blade straight razor for half a year now. We can say that I am familiar with the process of face preparation for straight razor shaving.

Tired of those "not-sharp-enough-to-my-taste" blades, I just bought myself a Hart Steel 6/8, quarter ground, round point straight razor and a 2" linen-leather strop. The razor is supposed to be shave-ready, but results are not the same for everyone. Some got their perfect, other needed some further honing. Hopefully mine will be good because I don't have a hone yet.

I read articles around the web and I'm kind of looking for your, you people, acknowledgement on my understanding of my situation as a "end-user" as the wiki would describe me:

1. A good stropping is mandatory before shaving. From the various thread, I understand that roughly 20 pass on linen and then 40 on leather should be good. No paste required.

2. I also read that people are also stropping after the shave in order to clean the blade.

3. Considering the blade as ready-to-shave, in a few months from now, I should be able to touch up my blade with a very fine (10K+ grit) stone and have it "shave-ready" for a life time.

All comments, corrections and acknowledgements are more than welcome.

Thank you for reading!

Max.