Thread: New to sr shaving

Hello,
I'm new to this hole thing not only to straight razors but also new to posting on a forum so let me tell you about myself and what led me here. i have been collecting knives for a while but straight razors were the farthest thing from my mind. i hone all my knives my self and been able to put a nice edge on them. i always test them by shaving my arm then one day just for kicks i tried to shave my face and it did take some hair off but man was it rough. So like every time i am looking to learn something new i hit up Google to find a way to get my knife sharper and that led me to SRP. Now I have been checking out the site for a few weeks now and I'm hooked. I started out just looking for a few tips on knife sharping now I've been doing nothing but reading about and looking up straight razors.
I have tried to shave with one once. About 2 weeks ago a friend of mine told me his grandfather gave him his old kit (a razor, strop, bowl & brush). After a bit of convincing i got him to brake it out. his grandfather had told him it was ready to shave with so I dipped it in some barbasol (his wife is a hair dresser) i didn't have any soap for the brush so i just used some canned shaving cream and went for it. The shave went pretty good for a first time (doesn't hurt that i keep a goatee) it tugged a bit but I'm sure my stropping technic left something to be desired and the razor probably could have been honed but now i was off and running. I tried to buy the kit from him but he wanted to hold on to it so now i need a razor.
Back to SRP i went and i started to check out what brands to get i almost bought some $18.00 razor and strop kit from eBay but you guys set me straight. I think I have settled on a kit from DOVO but it is going to take a few weeks to get my wife to loosen the purse strings a bit so I can drop $150.00 on something I don't really need so until then i have been just keeping my eye out for a deal.
I found a vintage J R Torrey and picked it up for less then $15.00 and it came with an original box. I did some research i like the history that i found so even if its not worth making a shaver out of it, anything that is 50-70 years old or pos older is just plain cool. The scales are in great shape the blade has no chips or cracks in it the finish was a bit dull but 5 min with some polishing compound and its got a mirror shine. Its sharp but not razor sharp and i don't own any stone higher than 1500 grit so now i have to decide if it is worth sending out to be honed or just put it on the shelf for display.
Now comes all of the questions. What should I look for when deciding on weather or not to restore a blade. If this blade is restorable should I try to learn on it or should I wait till i get the DOVO. Can i buy a cheep cowhide $20.00 strop to practice with or will it do more harm than good and last but not least. I would like to try honing my own razors I have my eye on a kit from norton I saw Lynn use on an eBay video but for my first time should i send it out to be done by a pro.
I thank everyone in advance for your advise and comments and look forward to reading the post's

Hello and welcome. If you've got a 1500-grit hone you can set the bevel, and you'll just need a Norton 4/8k and a strop and you'll be good to go. Razors have a built-in honing guide, the spine. The spine and the edge should ride the hone together--the bevel-setting stage is where you make sure that's happening. Once you're sure of that (once the blade is sharp enough to shave arm hairs) then you can move on to the 4k and 8k grits. I recommend following the pyramid honing instructions in our wiki, under razor care/honing. That was how I had my first honing success.

Your Torrey is a good razor and should shave well for you. For your first shaving attempts, you should send it out for a pro honing, so you'll know what a properly sharp razor feels like. That knowledge will help you learn razor honing as well.

Where do you live? With any luck there is a meetup or member nearby.

You can get off to a fine start with a blade and strop set from whippeddog.com. Larry there specializes in blades that may not be pretty anymore, but still take a good shaving edge. Last I knew, his kits ran about $55.

For answers about restoring or not, explore our wiki (the Library link above) and check out the Workshop forum.

Best wishes to you.

thanks for the quick response. I'm in Florida just outside of Tampa. I was reading and everyone seems to rec Lynn for a good honing I am thinking about sending it to him the blade looks nice only real tarnish is inside the scales where its hard to get to but its got a bit of a curve near the end I would feel better knowing some one who knows his stuff approved it. I'm just to new to trust myself. i did take it to a Knife shop near my house to be honed and the guy was about to put it in some machine with like a small belt sander in it and just said no thanks and took it home. I'm going to head over to the site and check out those kits now. thanks again

Originally Posted by KDiMan

. . . i did take it to a Knife shop near my house to be honed and the guy was about to put it in some machine with like a small belt sander in it and just said no thanks and took it home. I'm going to head over to the site and check out those kits now. thanks again

Good calls, both !!!!

Larry at whippeddog.com will be an easier sell to your wife, than SRD. There's nothing wrong with a sharp vintage razor and a Poor Man's strop.

Charles

Good call going for the vintage blade, I think, esp when you say you liked the history. That's like 80% of the fun for me. If all my razors were new I'd be way less interested. You could buy a Norton 4/8 to go with your 1500, and you could shave off the Norton 8, but you'd probably need to know what you're doing and what a really sharp razor feels like. I know you probably want to start right away, but I'd send the razor for a honing, I wouldn't start this whole journey with a razor I didn't know was shave ready.

Once you've done that; and got a strop (I'd say buy a good one, but my son uses his leather trousers belt; and has done for about 8 months or so) we'll advise of where to from here. That may mean buying a second razor and a finishing hone. Really, I'd say the minimum (for me) would be two razors, a nice strop, a Norton 4/8 and a Shapton 16k. Also you need good soap or cream, not canned stuff. Also a brush, but a supermarket (cheap) one is fine, really.